David M. Katz
is the author of Claims of Home, Poems 1984-2010 (Dos Madres Press, 2011) and The Warrior in the Forest (House of Keys, 1982).
Among his poetry credits are Poetry, The Paris Review, The New Republic, Shenandoah, and The New Criterion.
He lives in New York City, works as financial journalist, and is married to poet and editor Linda Stern.
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Thinking With One’s Feelings
And poetry is a way of thinking with one’s
feelings, anyway.
—Elizabeth Bishop
The phrase seems clear, but it’s hard to get.
Thinking with shadows, with sadness, with anger?
I’m thinking of thinking without regret.
Has the angry sun arisen yet?
The hungry lovers want to linger.
The phrase seems clear, but it’s hard to get.
The morning light caught in my net,
The fluke falling from my finger:
I’m thinking of thinking without regret.
God blesses the ground, the hidden street,
God blesses the maze in the heart of the stranger.
The phrase seems clear, but it’s hard to get.
When I was a child, I swam through the net,
Refusing with each breath to surrender.
I’m thinking of thinking without regret.
Perish the thought. Make it forget.
Feel your way in the dark through the danger.
The phrase seems clear, but it’s hard to get.
I’m thinking of thinking without regret.
[Originally published in Claims of Home, Poems 1984-2010 (Dos Madres Press, 2011).]
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