Timothy Donnelly: Pick of the Week [d. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Lunch in a Town Named After a Company Slowly Poisoning Its Residents

 

I saw a cow once on a hilltop casually stretch her neck

to face behind herself so that her hind leg might scratch

 

between her eyes with her hoof. I can’t emphasize enough

how casually she pulled this off, while obviously I was

 

gobsmacked, having never seen a cow do that before

and having never given thought to whether it was possible.

 

Well, it’s possible. Things slid back to normal after that

despite life’s electric charge, which I don’t let get the better of me.

 

Sometimes I feel like something might be underway,

but I just wait it out: hands on the table, eyes on the wall.

 

Meanwhile, it’s safe to say the cow is long since gone.

Not on account of what I saw, but because I saw it long ago.

 

A cow’s life expectancy is only fifteen years or so.

Me, I’m right here: red beans on yellow rice, a slightly

 

brown avocado. The day started off in clouds and the clouds

don’t always part. To ask too much of life would spoil it.

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Timothy Donnelly’s most recent book, Chariot, was published in 2023 by Wave Books. His previous books include The Problem of the Many, winner of the inaugural Big Other Poetry Prize, and The Cloud Corporation, winner of the 2012 Kingsley Tufts Poetry Award. A Guggenheim Fellow, he teaches at Columbia University and lives in Brooklyn with his family. 

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                                              Jack B. Yeats, The Road to Galway, oil on panel, 1924

 

Comments

[Bill Nevins]

Love this meditative poem,especially the last two lines.

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

Something is always underway. We wait for it, “hands on the table, eyes on the wall,” remembering the dog in the cow. It’s the kind of poem to remember all day. Thanks.

[Grace Cavalieri]

"Meanwhile, it’s safe to say the cow is long since gone. Not on account of what I saw, but because I saw it long ago."
This, I love, because it speaks of how time is an illusion and coluld not have been said better.

[Emily Fragos]

I will not forget this profound meditation and this cow, thanks to the brilliant poet, Timothy Donnelly.

[Matthew Rohrer]

Great poem! The tone is deliciously pregnant with something…

[Don Berger]

Wonderful wonderful poem that certainly sets off "life's electric charge"! I like the divergence from the cow, in the poem's middle, and then a return back to it, then on to its glorious exit. Bravo Timothy! Thank you Terence from bringing it here!

[Terence Winch]

Don: thanks for the comment, mon ami.

[lally]

another brilliantly resonant poem and post, thank you terence and timothy

[Terence Winch]

Michael: thanks for the comment. Glad you liked it.

[David Beaudouin]

In the realm of "begin in delight/end in wisdom," Timothy's poem is a sure winner. Mad grá for this one, Terence - thanks!

[Geoffrey Himes]

This gets at the truth that the best miracles are not advertised beforehand.

[Sr. Leslie]

A great poem…mediitative and has a nice rhythm to it..I love the Jack Yeats painting…the cow a good companion along the road to nowhere…Thanks Terence and Timothy…

[Lara Egger]

WOW! I ADORE this poem!!!! Just perfect.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, David. Glad you liked it.

[Terence Winch]

Thanks, Leslie. (I love that painting too.)

[Maureen]

I have seen cows do this and it is something to watch. I've seen horses using their muzzle eat the grass around a weed they had no way of seeing. Love the way T.D. windows his own life with this. Real poetry! And J.B. Yeats painting is to die for! Two home runs!

[Eileen Reich]

I love the poem, especially the last line. The artwork is terrific.

[Susan Campbell]

"To ask too much of life would spoil it."

Fantastic.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

After I read Timothy Donnelly’s poem, a statement by E. L. Doctorow swam back to my mind: “Writing is like driving at night in the fog. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.” Any good poem elicits the same sort of trust: an inchoate knowledge that you’re in sure, not necessarily reassuring, hands. The job of a poet is principally to stir, not soothe, though it can do both. I felt all of that while reading the poem. I began to delight in being upended. At no moment did I know how the poem would end. And I was glad to be kept not so much in the dark as in the penumbra (think Doctorow’s limited headlights beam). The seemingly quotidian observations of the initial three unrhyming couplets, ending with “whether it was possible,” lead to philosophical speculation and conclusion at the onset of the next couplet: “Well, it’s possible.” The real yields to the cerebral as the first-person narrator tries to articulate the larger impact of what he/she observed. We, as readers, take on the same task. The ostensible volta of the poem begins perhaps in the fourth couplet or certainly by the fifth couplet: “Sometimes I feel like something might be underway / but I just wait it out: hands on the table, eyes on the wall.” Also, any line of poetry beginning with “Meanwhile” (line 11) signals a shift both in time and in narrative perspective. The concrete or tangible emerge: “red beans on yellow rice, a slightly / brown avocado.” The last nine words of the poem seal its deceptive economy and overall brilliance: “To ask too much of life would spoil it.” The enduring irony of Donnelly’s poem is how deftly and plentifully it responds to our asking so much of it.

[David Schloss]

Wonderful poem, wonderful comments, wonderful contextualizing title (which I was
surprised no one mentioned. It sets the table for all the sensibility that follows.

[Susan Campbell]

Love the Yeats painting!