The Pool

By Robert Creeley 1926–2005 Robert Creeley

My embarrassment at his nakedness,

at the pool’s edge,

and my wife, with his,

standing, watching—

this was a freedom

not given me who am

more naked,

less contained

by my own white flesh

and the ability

to take quietly

what comes to me.

The sense of myself

separate, grew

a white mirror

in the quiet water

he breaks with his hands

and feet, kicking,

pulls up to land

on the edge by the feet

of these women

who must know

that for each

man is a speech

describes him, makes

the day grow white

and sure, a quietness of water

in the mind,

lets hang, descriptive

as a risk, something

for which he cannot find

a means or time.

Robert Creeley, “The Pool” from Selected Poems of Robert Creeley. Copyright © 1991 by the Regents of the University of California. Reprinted with the permission of the University of California Press, www.ucpress.edu.

Source: Selected Poems (1991)

Biography

Once known primarily for his association with the group called the “Black Mountain Poets,” at the time of his death in 2005, Robert Creeley was widely recognized as one of the most important and influential American poets of the twentieth century. His poetry is noted for both its concision and emotional power. Albert Mobilio, writing in the Voice Literary Supplement, observed: “Creeley has shaped his own audience. The much . . .

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