Early December in Croton-on-Hudson

By Louise Glück b. 1943 Louise Gluck

Spiked sun. The Hudson’s

Whittled down by ice.

I hear the bone dice

Of blown gravel clicking. Bone-

pale, the recent snow

Fastens like fur to the river.

Standstill. We were leaving to deliver

Christmas presents when the tire blew

Last year. Above the dead valves pines pared

Down by a storm stood, limbs bared . . .

I want you.

"Early December in Croton-on-Hudson" by Louise Glück, from The First Four Books of Poems. Copyright © 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1985, 1995 by Louise Glück. Used by the permission of HarperCollins Publishers, www.harpercollins.com.

Source: The First Four Books of Poems (The Ecco Press, 1995)

Biography

Louise Glück is considered by many to be one of America’s most talented contemporary poets. The poet Robert Hass has called her “one of the purest and most accomplished lyric poets now writing,” and her poetry is noted for its technical precision, sensitivity and insight into loneliness, family relationships, divorce, and death. Frequently described as “spare,” James K. Robinson in Contemporary Women Poets also noted that . . .

Continue reading this biography