September

By Joanne Kyger b. 1934 Joanne Kyger

The grasses are light brown

and the ocean comes in

long shimmering lines

under the fleet from last night

which dozes now in the early morning

Here and there horses graze

on somebody’s acreage

Strangely, it was not my desire

that bade me speak in church to be released

but memory of the way it used to be in

careless and exotic play

when characters were promises

then recognitions. The world of transformation

is real and not real but trusting.

Enough of these lessons? I mean

didactic phrases to take you in and out of

love’s mysterious bonds?

Well I myself am not myself

and which power of survival I speak

for is not made of houses.

It is inner luxury, of golden figures

that breathe like mountains do

and whose skin is made dusky by stars.

Source: About Now: Collected Poems (National Poetry Foundation, 2007)

Biography

Associated with the poets of the San Francisco Renaissance, poet Joanne Kyger studied philosophy and literature at the University of California, Santa Barbara, moving to San Francisco in 1957 just before she finished her degree. In San Francisco she attended the Sunday meetings of poets Jack Spicer and Robert Duncan, and moved into the East West House, a communal house for students of Zen Buddhism and Asian studies. She lived in . . .

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