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    Delights & Shadows
    Delights & Shadows
    Delights & Shadows
    Ebook95 pages53 minutes

    Delights & Shadows

    By Ted Kooser

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    About this ebook

    - Last season, Ted Kooser co-authored a book with Jim Harrison, Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry, which sold 3500 and got great reviews. - Kooser's recent memoir, Local Wonders, was featured in BookSense 76 and was selected as a Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers book. - Ted Kooser is featured in Dana Gioia's Can Poetry Matter?
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateDec 4, 2012
    ISBN9781619320055
    Delights & Shadows

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      Book preview

      Delights & Shadows - Ted Kooser

      I. WALKING ON TIPTOE

      Walking on Tiptoe

      Long ago we quit lifting our heels

      like the others — horse, dog, and tiger —

      though we thrill to their speed

      as they flee. Even the mouse

      bearing the great weight of a nugget

      of dog food is enviably graceful.

      There is little spring to our walk,

      we are so burdened with responsibility,

      all of the disciplinary actions

      that have fallen to us, the punishments,

      the killings, and all with our feet

      bound stiff in the skins of the conquered.

      But sometimes, in the early hours,

      we can feel what it must have been like

      to be one of them, up on our toes,

      stealing past doors where others are sleeping,

      and suddenly able to see in the dark.

      Tattoo

      What once was meant to be a statement —

      a dripping dagger held in the fist

      of a shuddering heart — is now just a bruise

      on a bony old shoulder, the spot

      where vanity once punched him hard

      and the ache lingered on. He looks like

      someone you had to reckon with,

      strong as a stallion, fast and ornery,

      but on this chilly morning, as he walks

      between the tables at a yard sale

      with the sleeves of his tight black T-shirt

      rolled up to show us who he was,

      he is only another old man, picking up

      broken tools and putting them back,

      his heart gone soft and blue with stories.

      At the Cancer Clinic

      She is being helped toward the open door

      that leads to the examining rooms

      by two young women I take to be her sisters.

      Each bends to the weight of an arm

      and steps with the straight, tough bearing

      of courage. At what must seem to be

      a great distance, a nurse holds the door,

      smiling and calling encouragement.

      How patient she is in the crisp white sails

      of her clothes. The sick woman

      peers from under her funny knit cap

      to watch each foot swing scuffing forward

      and take its turn under her weight.

      There is no restlessness or impatience

      or anger anywhere in sight. Grace

      fills the clean mold of this moment

      and all the shuffling magazines grow still.

      Student

      The green shell of his backpack makes him lean

      into wave after wave of responsibility,

      and he swings his stiff arms and cupped hands,

      paddling ahead. He has extended his neck

      to its full length, and his chin, hard as a beak,

      breaks the cold surf. He’s got his baseball cap on

      backward as up he crawls, out of the froth

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