{"id":174,"date":"2011-12-02T15:46:31","date_gmt":"2011-12-02T20:46:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/?page_id=174"},"modified":"2012-06-05T14:37:27","modified_gmt":"2012-06-05T18:37:27","slug":"featured-faculty-robert-pinsky","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/past-issues\/236-3\/featured-faculty-robert-pinsky\/","title":{"rendered":"Featured Faculty: Robert Pinsky"},"content":{"rendered":"

These three poems appeared in\u00a0Selected Poems<\/em> by Robert Pinsky.<\/h4>\n

The Want Bone<\/h1>\n

The tongue of the waves tolled in the earth’s bell.
\nBlue rippled and soaked in the fire of blue.
\nThe dried mouthbones of a shark in the hot swale
\nGaped on nothing but sand on either side.<\/p>\n

The bone tasted of nothing and smelled of nothing,
\nA scalded toothless harp, uncrushed, unstrung.
\nThe joined arcs made the shape of birth and craving
\nAnd the welded open shape kept mouthing O.<\/p>\n

Ossified cords held the corners together
\nIn groined spirals pleated like a summer dress.
\nBut where was the limber grin, the gash of pleasure?
\nInfinitesimal mouths bore it away,<\/p>\n

The beach scrubbed and etched and pickled it clean.
\nBut O I love you it sings, my little my country
\nMy food my parent my child I want you my own
\nMy flower my fin my life my lightness my O.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

The Wave<\/h1>\n

(Virgil, Georgics III: 237-244)<\/p>\n

As when far off in the middle of the ocean
\nA breast-shaped curve of wave begins to whiten
\nAnd rise above the surface, then rolling on
\nGathers and gathers until it reaches land
\nHuge as a mountain and crashes among the rocks
\nWith a prodigious roar, and what was deep
\nComes churning up from the bottom in mighty swirls
\nOf sunken sand and living things and water\u2014<\/p>\n

So in the springtime every race of people
\nAnd all the creatures on earth or in the water,
\nWild animals and flocks and all the birds
\nIn all their painted colors,
\nall rush to charge
\nInto the fire that burns them: love moves them all.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Antique<\/h1>\n

I drowned in the fire of having you, I burned
\nIn the river of not having you, we lived
\nTogether for hours in a house of a thousand rooms
\nAnd we were parted for a thousand years.
\nTen minutes ago we raised our children who cover
\nThe earth and have forgotten that we existed.
\nIt was not maya, it was not a ladder to perfection,
\nIt was this cold sunlight falling on this warm earth.<\/p>\n

When I turned you went to Hell. When your ship
\nFled the battle I followed you and lost the world
\nWithout regret but with stormy recriminations.
\nSomeday far down that corridor of horror the future
\nSomeone who buys this picture of you for the frame
\nAt a stall in a dwindled city will study your face
\nAnd decide to harbor it for a little while longer
\nFrom the waters of anonymity, the acids of breath.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

These three poems appeared in\u00a0Selected Poems by Robert Pinsky. The Want Bone The tongue of the waves tolled in the earth’s bell. Blue rippled and soaked in the fire of blue. The dried mouthbones of a shark in the hot swale Gaped on nothing but sand on either side. The bone tasted of nothing and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3755,"featured_media":0,"parent":284,"menu_order":2,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/174"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3755"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":367,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/174\/revisions\/367"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/284"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/236magazine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}