Poem During the Plague: Poem 18

BERT STERN

Born in Buffalo in 1930, Bert Stern is Milligan Professor of English Emeritus at Wabash College  He taught at the University of Thessaloniki from 1965-67 as Fulbright Professor of English and at Peking University as an exchange professor in 1984-5.  Stern published a pioneer study of Wallace Stevens in 1965 (Wallace Stevens, Art of Uncertainty, University of Michigan).

It’s clear now:  we need each other

and are alone.  Facetime helps, 

but poignantly:  pixels can’t sub

for flesh.  Still, heart reaches out

toward heart.  It’s finally clear:

we need each other but are alone.

The Sunday Poet: Bert Stern

Poet Bert Stern

THINGS WHERE THEY SHOULD BE   

  

I’d been sitting by the river all afternoon 

and now the sun was going down and Venus 

shone on the horizon.  I’d been sitting 

to watch how the water swirled into braids 

  

and swirled out again.  I was watching 

a leaf ride the river until, drawn into 

sluggish water near the bank it rested there. 

Evening fell but the full moon made 

the moving water sparkle. 

Quite late a trail took me up the long bank 

and across a rough meadow home. But before 

I climbed the porch steps I stopped and listened 

to distant water and a single owl. 

  

Above me Orion was still in place,   

so I went in to sleep in a room whose floor 

was earth and whose ceiling was moonlight.   

  

All night as I slept, in generous swirls 

the river pursued its intricate dance, as if 

it were still learning.