No new poems this week, which got away from me in every sense. So … here’s an unpublished chestnut from May 1978:

DEPARTURE

Shoving him to one side of the bed
his heart waved goodbye
as the train he had boarded leaned
into a curve

the invisible cars the silent engine
tang of steam in the empty room

and the nurse
glancing through the electric window
marked his bead of light
droning slow and level along the horizon

later as the body was dollied away
she felt the smooth floor tremble

one wheel
screeching its harsh dismay
like a distant whistle the wind
brings home to us

faintly
over the fields in winter

Something Chaplinesque about it that I still enjoy.

*

Also, in wandering among the many links out there for Dorothea Tanning (the painter, sculptor and poet who passed away on January 31 at the age of 101), I ran across a painting of hers that I choose to believe sprang from her reading of Montale‘s sunflower poem, which I attempted to translate here sometime back. The painting is entitled “Rapture”:

“Rapture,” by Dorothea Tanning

It’s interesting to note that “Rapture” was painted in 1944, two years before Tanning became the fourth wife of Max Ernst. There is a wonderful Lee Miller photo of the couple (in Sedona, Arizona) here.