DEREK WALCOn, SEAMUS HEANEY, AND CHRISTOPHER LYDON
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language . I spoke of Warren earlier as an almost epic poet, but the
thrill of this particular thing is the lyric, intimate moment.
Tell Me A Story
[A]
Long ago, in Kentucky , I, a boy, stood
By a dirt road, in first dark, and heard
The great geese hoot northward.
I could not see them, there being no moon
And the stars sparse . I heard them.
I did not know what was happening in my heart.
It was the season before the elderberry blooms,
Therefore they were going north.
The sound was passing northward.
[B]
Tell me a story.
In this century, and moment, of mania,
Tell me a story.
Make it a story of great distances, and starlight.
The name of the story will be Time,
But you must not pronounce its name.
Tell me a story of deep delight.
DW:
I'm quite friendly with Warren's daughter Rosanna, who is
herself a poet. And, I've met the Warrens - Eleanor Clark and
Robert Penn Warren-through Rosanna. Seamus and I, we've gone
out there and met him. He's a overy, very kind man, there's a
strength of kindness in him that's wonderful to feel, and a kind of
risky nobility in him that's amusing and nice. And he has been quite
ill recently. I just wrote a draft of a poem which may be appropriate
because of the fact that he has just been honored; although it wasn't
written because of the appointment to the poet laureateship, nor was
it written for any other reason but perhaps just to please Rosanna
maybe , because she's very fond of her father, and I have grown very
fond of him. It is called "On the Indian Trail." I didn't know it was
going to be a poem about Warren, all I had in my mind was an old
man in the middle of a stream, and there was somebody watching
