The Friends of Heraclitus

By Charles Simic b. 1938 Charles Simic

Your friend has died, with whom

You roamed the streets,

At all hours, talking philosophy.

So, today you went alone,

Stopping often to change places

With your imaginary companion,

And argue back against yourself

On the subject of appearances:

The world we see in our heads

And the world we see daily,

So difficult to tell apart

When grief and sorrow bow us over.

You two often got so carried away

You found yourselves in strange neighborhoods

Lost among unfriendly folk,

Having to ask for directions

While on the verge of a supreme insight,

Repeating your question

To an old woman or a child

Both of whom may have been deaf and dumb.

What was that fragment of Heraclitus

You were trying to remember

As you stepped on the butcher’s cat?

Meantime, you yourself were lost

Between someone’s new black shoe

Left on the sidewalk

And the sudden terror and exhilaration

At the sight of a girl

Dressed up for a night of dancing

Speeding by on roller skates.

Source: Walking the Black Cat (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 1996)

Biography

Charles Simic is widely recognized as one of the most visceral and unique poets writing today. Simic’s work has won numerous awards, among them the 1990 Pulitzer Prize, the MacArthur Foundation “genius grant,” the Griffin International Poetry Prize, and, simultaneously, the Wallace Stevens Award and appointment as U.S. Poet Laureate. He taught English and creative writing for over thirty years at the University of New Hampshire. . . .

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