Burning Trash

By John Updike 1932–2009 John Updike

At night—the light turned off, the filament

Unburdened of its atom-eating charge,

His wife asleep, her breathing dipping low

To touch a swampy source—he thought of death.

Her father's hilltop home allowed him time

To sense the nothing standing like a sheet

Of speckless glass behind his human future.

He had two comforts he could see, just two.

One was the cheerful fullness of most things:

Plump stones and clouds, expectant pods, the soil

Offering up pressure to his knees and hands.

The other was burning the trash each day.

He liked the heat, the imitation danger,

And the way, as he tossed in used-up news,

String, napkins, envelopes, and paper cups,

Hypnotic tongues of order intervened.

Source: Collected Poems 1953-1993 (1993)

Biography

An acclaimed and award-winning writer of fiction, essays, and reviews, John Updike has also been writing poetry for most of his life. Growing up in Pennsylvania, his early inspiration to be a writer came from watching his mother, an aspiring writer, submit her work to magazines. In an interview Updike stated, “I began as a writer of light verse, and have tried to carry over into my serious or lyric verse something of the . . .

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