One Hundred and First Reason to Stay in Your Room
by Franz Wright
I was just coming from a visit to my doctor. Not the medical one this time, though they both work for the same company. One of those inimitably dark April days in Boston, the cold returned, though not in a big way: gray, drizzly, brain still closed for repairs. It was then I noticed the squirrel crossing the deserted Common. This was over in the northwest corner, where they used to deal with the witches and Quakers, those dangerous conspirators; and on desolately chilly days like this, the warmth from the fire alone would have drawn quite a crowd. I'm making that up. We didn't burn them anymore, like those European barbarians; we just hanged them, in the cold, within sight of the governor's office but far enough away to keep them from disrupting business there in the great gold-domed statehouse on the hill. I've had a couple of occasions to wander its oddly dim myopia-inducing hallways, and the only thing I remember with any clarity is the big round stained-glass window depicting a Native American shaking hands with the pilgrim in his preposterous uniform, the one who has braved exile and the terrifying sea to worship as he saw fit and make sure you do too. It had crossed my path from left to right, frozen in midflight, and looked me in the eye, shivering. I had never seen a squirrel shiver. For a minute it made me feel like I was dying. Thank you for coming to help us, the naked Caucasian cartoon of an Indian is saying, forever, in an arc of English words across the sky.
This prose poem is from Kindertotenwald, the latest collection by Franz Wright (American, born 1953), who has published eleven other volumes of poetry and five works of translations, three of these the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Franz is the son of poet James Wright; both father and son have been winners of the Pulitzer Prize.
by Franz Wright
I was just coming from a visit to my doctor. Not the medical one this time, though they both work for the same company. One of those inimitably dark April days in Boston, the cold returned, though not in a big way: gray, drizzly, brain still closed for repairs. It was then I noticed the squirrel crossing the deserted Common. This was over in the northwest corner, where they used to deal with the witches and Quakers, those dangerous conspirators; and on desolately chilly days like this, the warmth from the fire alone would have drawn quite a crowd. I'm making that up. We didn't burn them anymore, like those European barbarians; we just hanged them, in the cold, within sight of the governor's office but far enough away to keep them from disrupting business there in the great gold-domed statehouse on the hill. I've had a couple of occasions to wander its oddly dim myopia-inducing hallways, and the only thing I remember with any clarity is the big round stained-glass window depicting a Native American shaking hands with the pilgrim in his preposterous uniform, the one who has braved exile and the terrifying sea to worship as he saw fit and make sure you do too. It had crossed my path from left to right, frozen in midflight, and looked me in the eye, shivering. I had never seen a squirrel shiver. For a minute it made me feel like I was dying. Thank you for coming to help us, the naked Caucasian cartoon of an Indian is saying, forever, in an arc of English words across the sky.
This prose poem is from Kindertotenwald, the latest collection by Franz Wright (American, born 1953), who has published eleven other volumes of poetry and five works of translations, three of these the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke. Franz is the son of poet James Wright; both father and son have been winners of the Pulitzer Prize.
