Location via proxy:   [ UP ]  
[Report a bug]   [Manage cookies]                
Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    From $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Yellow Stars and Ice
    Yellow Stars and Ice
    Yellow Stars and Ice
    Ebook91 pages40 minutes

    Yellow Stars and Ice

    By Susan Stewart

    5/5

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    From a sequence, "The Countries Surrounding the Garden of Eden":



    Gihon, that compasseth the whole land



    At the first frost we found our sheep with strangled hearts, lying on their backs in the frozen clover, their eyes wide open as if they were surprised by a constellation of drought or endless winter. The wolves walked into the snow, like men who have given up living without love; cows would no longer let go of their calves, hiding them deep in the birch groves. Everywhere the roads gave off their wild animal cries, running toward the edge of what we had thought was the world. And the names of things as we knew them would no longer bring them to us.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPrinceton University Press
    Release dateSep 1, 2020
    ISBN9780691217895
    Yellow Stars and Ice

    Read more from Susan Stewart

    Related to Yellow Stars and Ice

    Titles in the series (26)

    View More
    View More

    Related ebooks

    Poetry For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • UNLIMITED

      TEN POEMS Translations of Rafael Alberti

      May 1, 2024

      Throughout the centuries,through the nothingness of the world,I, without sleep, search for you. Behind me, imperceptible,without touching my shoulders,my dead angel keeps watch. Where is Paradise,Shadow, you who have been there?I ask silently. Cities

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Diaspora Sonnets

      Sep 1, 2022

      The old men drink their spritzers and gossipunder awnings. Red hued and blustery, like two roosters on the side of a road.Skyward they crane their necks and laugh, sometimes they wonder about kings and future kingsand how the muscles peer from their

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Mar 1, 2022

      Five Poems
      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Jul 1, 2020

      She was a security guard and even though her uniform was black I could seeIt was covered in blood, the marble floor was covered in blood, it wasSlowly pooling out from the space where HER HAND used to beOh my god, I said, then I started to say, YOUR

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Something About John Coltrane

      Sep 1, 2021

      Something about a tree in shallow sleepListening for what it wants to remember: The note of a seed, its neck sliding throughDirt and its confusion—nothing cleansed Of struggle. The weight lost after death,A confrontation of death. John Coltrane Even

      5 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Toward A Unified Theory

      Jan 1, 2022

      Condemned to live inside the weatherof our moods What are you doing? Filling this bucket with waterand dumping it into the water They can’t excavate the amphitheater further because it extends backbeneath the houses We close their eyes not for thembu

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Silvia Guerra

      Jun 9, 2020

      The dry, black branches of winter seen in flight run singing. Come here to drink translucent drops on fresh leaves. Come over here, and try to light that wick. If you descend from the summit, humming, perhaps I can see you, perhaps at the river’s cur

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Some Of The Men We Love Are Terrorists

      Jan 1, 2022

      & honestly, i have no solutions—our world a mad swarm of bees. forgive me my own devotion, the handsome clench. my first love masters a sinister arithmetic; his patrilineage swelling like a heavy god between his legs. i’m well-conditioned, my hands a

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Jun 14, 2022

      Peak gust and west of July.Wind is full-song-singing wings,full-on whistling grass saturation. The aftercast (neither wet-bulb noroldfield lark, not dry punch, notdiablo wind) an atlas of starling- like neglect, flock-overlook. Emily Dickinson wrote:

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      from BLACK PASTORAL

      Nov 1, 2023

      somewheres, some lifetimes ago I have run so far, so long.There is nowhere I haven’t beenBut here, in this field, a bodyLength from the ragged brinkThat gives way to forest.I collapsed here, the thin, hard slipOf me whittled at both ends.I want badly

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Devil Asks Why You Would Mouth The Word Pity

      Jul 1, 2022

      even in this abundance of dark? Even in this abundance of dark you have totake the stars on faith. Look: Under today’s dim sky there is a basket.In that basket there is a fish. Come night, you are the animal that will eat the best parts of it. And ye

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      All I Know

      Jul 1, 2022

      The Statue of Liberty was packed in crates of lentilsand there is a species of catfish with scalesso tough that piranhas can’t chew throughto red softness. I’m thinking of what is vital,today. The willow tree in my dreams that swaysand a little girl

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Year in Reading: Max Porter

      Dec 6, 2019

      I would have been lost this year (as any other) without poetry to cling to and travel with. The post A Year in Reading: Max Porter appeared first on The Millions.

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Rot

      Sep 2, 2022

      Rot
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Jan 1, 2022

      I’ve seen enough films where a character nickshimself shaving or maybe has a bread knife slip and the thinrun of blood is supposed to stand for some violence,for something he did and is desperateto cover up, but the truth will out—I’ve seen enough th

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Three Poems

      Nov 1, 2023

      for Brenda Shaughnessy The news isn’t good, and neither of us feelslike pretending, though the list of what we hope forgrows longer by the day. More news, goodor otherwise, everything witnessed by the lightof fires, and something we cherished alwaysb

      2 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Yearning for Redemption

      Jul 26, 2024

      Yearning for Redemption
      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Think What a Poem Might Do: A Conversation with Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder

      Aug 17, 2017

      What, if anything, do you think poetry can do for us in these difficult times? The post Think What a Poem Might Do: A Conversation with Jill Bialosky and Matthew Zapruder appeared first on The Millions.

      10 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry

      Feb 6, 2024

      Bang out hundreds of pages of rhyming couplets about something other than your identity or your perceptions, and you, too, will likely fall out of love with lyric poetry. The post Falling Out of Love with Lyric Poetry appeared first on The Millions.

      4 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Five Poems

      Nov 1, 2022

      A prayer begins & endseach meeting, it starts with the word God& ends with the word difference. The difference, as far as I can tell,between what is offered & what is possible is a chasm. At times it seemswe simply run out of places to be, until we c

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Younger Than War

      Nov 9, 2023

      Younger Than War
      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Where To Start With Louise Glück, Winner Of The 2020 Nobel Prize In Literature

      Oct 14, 2020

      The Swedish Academy has awarded this year's Nobel Prize in literature to Louise Gluck, a former U.S. poet laureate. The 16th woman to win the prestigious prize and the first American woman since Toni Morrison in 1993, Gluck is the author of 12 poetry

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Books

      Feb 6, 2023

      Dorothy Tse’s debut novel, Owlish, is a fantastic if discomforting work of art. In scintillant prose (as translated by Natascha Bruce from the original Chinese), Tse conjures up the figure of Professor Q , a middle-aged man wearied by his dreary life

      3 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      A Bone-tough Throat

      Nov 1, 2021

      Books God of Nothingness by Mark Wunderlich Graywolf, 96 pages, 2021 Paperback, $16.00 My father fell from the boat.His balance had been poor for some time.He had gone out in the boat with his doghunting ducks in a marsh near Trempealeau, Wisconsin.N

      11 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      Legacy

      Sep 6, 2022

      I think of the old pipes,how everything whitein my house is rust-stained,and the gray-snoutedraccoon who insists on usingmy attic as his pee pad, I’vetried, oh I’ve triedto noavail, and certainsadnesses losing their edges,their sheen, their furchalk-

      1 min read

    • UNLIMITED

      The Time Is Now

      Jun 12, 2024

      Artistic community is at the core of this new craft book about the artist’s life and work over time by author and critic Stacey D’Erasmo, whose novels include the Lambda Literary Award–winning A Seahorse Year (Harcourt, 2004) and Wonderland (Harcourt

      2 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for Yellow Stars and Ice

    5/5

    1 rating0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      Yellow Stars and Ice - Susan Stewart

      My Ear to the Chest of the World

      I put my ear to the chest of the world,

      my ear to the pillow soaked

      with dawn, and what returns

      are the muted cymbals

      of my own insomniac

      heart, like someone

      throwing glasses at a wall

      all night and none of them

      breaking. What a life my body

      will carry on without me!

      What enormous rivers

      tearing free of the mountains.

      It begins with the hoarse violin

      scrapes of the sparrows

      and the moon’s slow dance

      across the gleaming

      white basin.

      1    from the throw of hours

      Every True Miracle

      Every true miracle happens in the morning.

      The heads and feet of our beds live on

      and between them, our own heads and feet,

      and between them, we say "It’s us,

      we’re still here" with voices that haven’t

      cracked or split, that haven’t changed keys

      in the night. To brush our teeth is not

      to destroy them. Only a little hair falls out,

      hardly any skin comes off on the washcloth.

      The inhabitants match the mailbox and the days

      of the week are reliable. This is as astonishing

      as orange juice, or soap that has risen

      from ashes, as smooth and white as

      an angel’s hand and much simpler to believe in.

      For the body never blows up. In spite

      of heavy winds no limbs fall off. The birds

      never wake up angrily, the milkman

      walks on toes of tremendous kindness.

      When it rains, the world doesn’t melt,

      and when it snows, the snow disappears

      not the porch roof. Not a single building

      has switched with another, not a single

      bridge has buckled under by daybreak

      with the weight of stars and buses.

      The garden shakes off the dew like a puppy.

      Light runs around the town without

      a wheelchair, the church bells are acting

      like acrobats. Even the mice survive!

      A stranger is waking across the river

      and by nightfall you may walk into his sleep.

      The Long Boats of the Afternoon

      Everywhere the long boats of the afternoon sail

      in and out of the windows, dipping through

      the low murmurs of mothers and children, pulled

      by the sad August light on the shades. Imagine

      blue hydrangeas shaking loose in a light rain,

      a petal flickering like a startled moth, a white

      moth disappearing into a white wall

      and back, the wall folding into itself. And

      out. It’s only my cool hand and my white dress

      in the water. It’s only your single black shoe,

      tap dancing around the room like a cricket.

      Everywhere the afternoon comes swelling

      through the windows, picking the locks

      and prying open the bars like a grand

      beginning that trails into a whisper or

      an insect’s song, rising in the heat. A yellowed

      newspaper unfolds like a water lily and even

      the news is news. Your black shoe is trying

      its best to speak. The long boats drift slowly

      by through the shadows, their blue flags

      disappearing into the sky and back.

      Their hulls are weighted by the trunks

      of immigrants and prisoners, and by

      lovers eloping with ropes and ladders.

      A girl in the stem trails her hand through

      the light, and the moon splashes out

      like a flickering sheet of paper. And because

      of this simple and absent-minded gesture,

      she is the one who has written this poem.

      At Six

      for Edward

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1