The Rescue

By Robert Creeley 1926–2005 Robert Creeley

The man sits in a timelessness

with the horse under him in time

to a movement of legs and hooves

upon a timeless sand.

Distance comes in from the foreground

present in the picture as time

he reads outward from

and comes from that beginning.

A wind blows in

and out and all about the man

as the horse ran

and runs to come in time.

A house is burning in the sand.

A man and horse are burning.

The wind is burning.

They are running to arrive.

Robert Creeley, “The Rescue” 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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