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from the issue of August 25, 2005
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American Life in Poetry
BY TED KOOSER, U.S. POET LAUREATE
At the beginning of the famous novel, "Remembrance of Things Past," the mere taste of a biscuit started Marcel Proust on a seven-volume remembrance. Here a bulldozer turns up an old doorknob, and look what happens in Shirley Buettner's imagination.
Discovered
While clearing the west
quarter for more cropland,
the Cat quarried
a porcelain doorknob
oystered in earth,
grained and crazed
like an historic egg,
with a screwless stem of
rusted and pitted iron.
I turn its cold white roundness
with my palm and
open the oak door
fitted with oval glass,
fretted with wood ivy,
and call my frontier neighbor.
Her voice comes distant but
clear, scolding children
in overalls
and highbutton shoes.
A bucket of fresh eggs and
a clutch of rhubarb rest
on her daisied oil-cloth.
She knew I would knock someday,
wanting in.
From "Walking Out the Dark" (Juniper Press, 1984). Copyright (c) 1984 by Shirley Buettner and reprinted by permission of the author. This weekly column is supported by The Poetry Foundation, The Library of Congress, and the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. This column does not accept unsolicited poetry.
GO TO: ISSUE OF AUGUST 25
ARTS HEADLINES FOR AUGUST 25
Rowan Retrospective Featured at Eisentrager-Howard Gallery
American Life in Poetry
Competition seeks sunflower images
Davis to offer poetry reading Aug. 31
'Einstein' to play Carson Theater
Gornik paintings, drawings featured at Sheldon
Sheldon gallery named in honor of Rohmans
University Theatre tickets on sale Aug. 29
732183S34787X
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