Two poets spend an evening waiting — away from their love, in darkness, in silence, in a private inventory of yes and no.
Linda Gregg's poem is raw and surprising. She is walking home alone, three miles, wanting to die — not dramatically, but in the flat, exhausted way that unrequited longing produces. And so she does something strange and clarifying: she starts answering questions. Yes I hate dark. No I love light. Yes I won't speak. No I will write. She is sorting herself out, making a reckoning. And at the end of it all — having finished with everything, having accepted that romance is not permitted, only its distance — she waits. Not for him. For the silence to resume.
Adam Zagajewski's poem is quieter and more devastatingly compressed. He has not written a poem in months. He has been living humbly — reading the paper, watching sunsets, listening to birds go quiet. And then the last three words arrive like a door opening: lightning, transformation, you. The whole poem has been a list of absences, and suddenly it is a declaration. He has been waiting, all this time, without knowing what for. Now he knows.
❀
New York Address
The sun had just gone out
and I was walking three miles to get home.
I wanted to die.
I couldn't think of words and I had no future
and I was coming down hard on everything.
My walk was terrible.
I didn't seem to have a heart at all
and my whole past seemed filled up.
So I started answering all the questions
regardless of consequence:
Yes I hate dark. No I love light. Yes I won't speak.
No I will write. Yes I will breed. No I won't love.
Yes I will bless. No I won't close. Yes I won't give.
Love is on the other side of the lake.
It is painful because the dark makes you hear
the water more. I accept all that.
And that we are not allowed romance but only its distance.
Having finished with it all, now I am not listening.
I wait for the silence to resume.
I haven't written a single poem
in months.
I've lived humbly, reading the paper,
pondering the riddle of power
and the reasons for obedience.
I've watched sunsets
(crimson, anxious),
I've heard the birds grow quiet
and night's muteness.
I've seen sunflowers dangling
their heads at dusk, as if a careless hangman
had gone strolling through the gardens.
September's sweet dust gathered
on the windowsill and lizards
hid in the bends of walls.
I've taken long walks,
craving one thing only:
lightning,
transformation,
you.