Are the angels of her bed the angels who come near me alone in mine? Are the green trees in her window the color is see in ripe plums? If she always sees backward and upside down without knowing it what chance do we have? I am haunted by the feeling that she is saying melting lords of death, avalanches, rivers and moments of passing through, And I am replying, "Yes, yes. Shoes and pudding.
Jack GilbertI'm vain enough to think that I've made a successful life. I've had everything I've ever wanted. You can't beat that.
Jack GilbertI believe that Icarus was not failing as he fell, but just coming to the end of his triumph.
Jack GilbertHow astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite.
Jack GilbertYou will love again, people say. Give it time. Me with time running out. Day after day of the everyday. What they call real life, made of eighth-inch gauge. Newness strutting around as if it were significant. Irony, neatness and rhyme pretending to be poetry. I want to go back to that time after Michiko's death when I cried every day among the trees. To the real. To the magnitude of pain, of being that much alive.
Jack Gilbert