Jane Hirshfield is
masterful in this poem. I feel so drawn into the imagery. I identify with the sense
that life is flashing past and I can’t take in but a fraction of it. I sometimes
feel like a helpless bystander watching it happen.
THE GALLOP
Jane
Hirshfield
There are days the whole
house moves at a gallop.
Bookshelves and counters,
bottles of aspirin and oil,
chairs, saucepans, and
towels.
I can barely encircle the
neck
of a bounding pen with my
fingers
before it breaks free of
their notions;
open the door before the
dog
of lop-eared hopes leaps
through it;
pick up the paper before
it goes up as kindling.
Barely eat before
something snatches
the toast from my plate,
drains the last mouthfuls
of coffee out of my cup.
Even these words
before the blue ink track
has dried on the paper,
they’ve already been read
and agreed to or flung
aside for others I don’t yet know of,
and well before
I have dressed or brushed
out the braid of my hair
a woman with my own shadow
has showered and chosen
her earrings, bought groceries
and fallen in love, grown
tired, grown old.
Her braid in the mirror
shines with new ribbons of silver,
like the mane of a heavy
warhorse.
He stands in the silence
as if after battle, sides heaving, spent.
From “Given Sugar, Given
Salt” by Jane Hirshfield
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