3 by Kay Ryan

Big Frank has been reading Kay Ryan's poetry.  She is amazing.  Here are a three of her poems.

LEAVING SPACES

It takes a courageous
person to leave spaces
empty. Certainly any
artist in the Middle Ages
felt this timor, and quickly
covered space over
with griffins, sea serpents,
herbs and brilliant carpets
of flowers--things pleasant
or unpleasant, no matter.
Of course they were cowards
and patronized by cowards
who liked their swards as
filled with birds as leaves.
All of them believed in
sudden edges and completely
barren patches in the mind,
and they didn't want to
think about them all the time.


CAUGHT

If something
gets caught
like a bone
in the throat
it isn't right.

We know this
with fish:

it isn't impolite
to cough.
Our life
is at risk.

But there are
so many wrong thoughts
we refuse to release

massaging
our own throats
like pate geese.


RELIEF

We know it is close
to something lofty.
Simply getting over being sick
or finding lost property
has in it the leap,
the purge, the quick humility
of witnessing a birth--
how love seeps up
and retakes the earth.
There is a dreamy
wading feeling to your walk
inside the current
of restored riches,
clocks set back,
disasters averted.