Poetry Magazine
The Decision
There is a moment before a shape
hardens, a color sets.
Before the fixative or heat of kiln.
The letter might still be taken
from the mailbox.
The hand held back by the elbow,
the word kept between the larynx pulse
and the amplifying drum-skin of the room’s air.
The thorax of an ant is not as narrow.
The green coat on old copper weighs more.
Yet something slips through it —
looks around,
sets out in the new direction, for other lands.
Not into exile, not into hope. Simply changed.
As a sandy track-rut changes when called a Silk Road:
it cannot be after turned back from.
Source: Poetry (May 2008).
Biography
Award-winning poet, essayist, and translator Jane Hirshfield is the author of several collections of verse, including Come, Thief (2011), After (2006), shortlisted for the T.S. Eliot prize, and Given Sugar, Given Salt (2001), a finalist for the National Book Critics Award, among others. Hirshfield has also translated the work of early women poets in collections such as The Ink Dark Moon: Poems by Ono no Komachi and Izumi . . .
Poems by Jane Hirshfield
Poem Categorization
SUBJECT Living, Social Commentaries, Life Choices
If you disagree with this poem's categorization, make a suggestion.
Related
Audio
Poem of the Day: All the Difficult Hours and Minutes- Poetry Off the Shelf: All Too Human
- Poem of the Day: A Cedary Fragrance
- Poetry Radio Project: "Cook" by Jane Hirshfield
- Poem of the Day: The Envoy
- Poem of the Day: Heat
- Poem of the Day: The Heat of Autumn
- Poem of the Day: It Was Like This
- Poetry Off the Shelf: Jane Hirshfield
- Poem of the Day: Of: An Assay
- Poem of the Day: The Pear
- Poetry Radio Project: Poetry + Mahler
- Poetry Off the Shelf: Romancing the Pork
- Poem of the Day: To Judgment: An Assay
- Poem of the Day: Tree
- The Poetry Magazine Podcast: Wild Bard—or Professional?
- Poem of the Day: The Woodpecker Keeps Returning
For What Binds Us
Your results will be limited to content that appeared in Poetry magazine.
