Swimming Lessons

Selected Poems

Nancy Willard

• Publisher: Open Road Media
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781480481534
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

This marvelous collection brings together the finest of Nancy Willard's work 
Transporting us from Michigan farm country to the streets of New York, from a family picnic by a stream to snow-covered fields peopled by angels, the poems gathered here represent the best of Nancy Willard.
Willard's gift for peeling back everyday existence to reveal something magical and wondrous is everywhere in evidence here. Ordinary trees become surreal landscapes "fanning the fire in their stars" and "spraying fountains of light." Poems featuring Great Danes, donkeys, and rabbits reveal Willard's love for all living creatures. "How to Stuff a Pepper" and "A Psalm for Running Water" coexist with poems about visits from God. The title poem tells the story of Willard at seven, while "Questions My Son Asked Me, Answers I Never Gave Him" explores the joys and pitfalls of being a mother.
Offering imagery from mythical goddesses to pumpkin saints to wise jellyfish, these are poems of astonishing imagination and grace, and will introduce a new generation of readers to Willard's remarkable body of work.

from

Water Walker

(1989)

A Wreath to the Fish

Who is this fish, still wearing its wealth,

flat on my drainboard, dead asleep,

its suit of mail proof only against the stream?

What is it to live in a stream,

to dwell forever in a tunnel of cold,

never to leave your shining birthsuit,

never to spend your inheritance of thin coins?

And who is the stream, who lolls all day

in an unmade bed, living on nothing but weather,

singing, a little mad in the head,

opening her apron to shells, carcasses, crabs,

eyeglasses, the lines of fishermen begging for

news from the interior—oh, who are these lines

that link a big sky to a small stream

and go down for great things:

the cold muscle of the trout,

the shining scrawl of the eel in a difficult passage,

hooked—but who is this hook, this cunning

and faithful fanatic who will not let go

but holds the false bait and the true worm alike

and tears the fish, yet gives it up to the basket

in which it will ride to the kitchen

of someone important, perhaps the Pope

who rejoices that his cook has found such a fish

and blesses it and eats it and rises, saying,

“Children, what is it to live in the stream,

day after day, and come at last to the table,

transfigured with spices and herbs,

a little martyr, a little miracle;

children, children, who is this fish?”

The Feast of St. Tortoise

The day of her wedding, she crouches in the kitchen

and talks to the tortoise. He is older than she,

one of the family but celibate, reserved,

having taken holy orders in chapels of damp earth.

She admires his head, speckled with ivory coins.

She touches his cowl, tender as chamois.

She praises his toadstool legs, his decisive beak,

and the raised ornament of his kindness

as he offers himself for a table

or a gameboard of fretted lacquer:

each hexagon fences a mound

into which a star has fallen so deeply

the whole field is on fire.

Let no guest go hungry.

She sets out a plate of lettuce chopped

into ruffles, the cool cheek

of an apple parceled and peeled.

This is for you, old friend.

He flippers forth. The bright worm of his tail

wags after him.

Psalm to the Newt

Look at the newt. He is worth watching.

The small stars of his hands sign the water.

His fingers thread beads of water on strands of water.

On the canopy of seaweed, he knits his proverbs:

Behold the newt—a weak arm may stir great secrets.

His arms, thin as threads, part curtains of water.

He is a rock to the snail and a snare to the worm.

His back raises an island: sad, a used tire.

The grainy dark of his skin glistens.

To the snails he brings the wet bark of trees.

Old shovel-head, guardian of patience,

you break through the silver roof

of the parliament of water

in the tiny pond of the aquarium.

You who sharpen your tail on the sunrise,

in your livery of cold flames you greet us,

in your vest buttoned with embers you greet us.

You turn on us, slowly, your hooded eyes.

Are you trying to change into something else

or change us into clouds,

shadowy behind glass as the lost gods?

Airport Lobsters

Thrown together in a tank, a litter of lobsters

looks for the way back. When I hurry past, they wave

their taped claws—discreet, like the beaks of birds—

as if I were a door through which they could pass

to deep water, taking their leave of Atlantic shrimp in tins,

smoked oysters, caviar from the Caspian Sea.

My flight is late, and theirs will never arrive.

Their jet eyes pin regret on a watery map.

Moonstalkers, tidekeepers, robots of deep currents,

in whom indigo deepens to midnight when you give up

the ghost, forgive me. I won’t forget the shoals of you,

the scrabbling heaps, the sick adrift, light lapping the dead

like a field of samurai in full armor,

your greaves freckled with ashes,

your corselets plated with moonlight,

your antennae still whipping

bubbles of pumped air.

Life at Sea: The Naming of Fish

Stand among fish and admire the angels,

the Marble Angel, like grillwork on a sad house

sunk in the suburbs of New Orleans,

and the Black Angel, little undertaker of the waters,

and the Gold Angel, new-minted, and the Silver Angel

that tumbles from God’s purse and hides

Silver Dollars in the pockets of water,

their eyes in love with the shyness of pearls.

Schooled in silence, the catfish do not consider

you. Glass Cats, Green Cats: whiskered gentlemen,

they paddle to their clubs

in small expensive suits of woven jade.

The Gold Convict does not take flight,

though like a note in a bottle

it has lived its pale life in hiding.

What do we know of their risings and settings?

The Red Oscar wears ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Publisher's Note
• Epigraph
• NEW POEMS
• from IN HIS COUNTRY (1966)
• from The Cycle of the Fountain (Oslo: Frogner Park)
• from SKIN OF GRACE (1967)
• from A NEW HERBALL (1968)
• from 19 MASKS FOR THE NAKED POET (1971)
• from CARPENTER OF THE SUN (1974)
• from HOUSEHOLD TALES OF MOON AND WATER (1982)
• from THE BALLAD OF BIDDY EARLY (1987)
• from WATER WALKER (1989)
• from A NANCY WILLARD READER (1991)
• from AMONG ANGELS (1995)
• Acknowledgments and Permissions
• About the Author
• Copyright