Tag: Ted Kooser

Two Poems by Ted Kooser

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At Walmart

The glass doors to the store’s garden center,
boxed in by a chain link fence open on top,
have been locked for the winter, all the plants
gone, all that color, that strong geranium

fragrance wafted away, the long folding tables
nobody noticed when covered with flowers
now folded and stacked, the only things out there
in a light blowing snow this cold morning.

Why is it that winter looks so much more
like winter when fenced in, confined like this,
two or three inches of light snow on the stacked
tables, a wrapper from something or other

skittering over the white, untracked expanse,
nobody out there peering in under the leaves
or holding a pot at arm’s length to see it,
turning it into the light, whereas only a few

moments before, you came in out of the same
winter, not paying much attention to it,
but now you stand transfixed, looking out
into the snow sweeping over the emptiness.

* 

A Man Walking

Next into our lives comes a man walking,
head down, perhaps seeing the cracked sidewalk
under his feet, perhaps not, more likely
caught up in his thoughts, bare head butted
into wherever he’s going, the wind from there
fallen still as he stops at a street corner
and waits for the light to change, not looking
up at the light, perhaps reading the movements
of people around him, long coat fallen slack,
his hands stuffed in his pockets, and then
with the rest, starting across, setting his pace
to their pace, no doubt trusting in them to know
when to walk, when to slow, when to stop,
as with the others he leans into what’s next,
wherever he’s going, what he’s entering into,
one with everyone else as, all together, they
shoulder into what’s coming, but our man,
who looks to be nobody’s man, is not meeting
the eyes of all those who’ve already been there
and are on their way back, as they side-step
around him, not touching him, glancing at him
for only that instant, then letting him go.

*

Ted Kooser is a former US Poet Laureate and Pulitzer Prize winner who lives in retirement in Rural Nebraska. His most recent collection of poems is “Raft” from Copper Canyon Press (2024). Forthcoming is his sixth children’s book from Candlewick Press and a book of interviews from University Press of Mississippi, “Conversations with Ted Kooser.”

Shade by Ted Kooser

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SHADE

When the weather was pleasant I’d see him
parked on a straight chair in the shade
of their open porch, just the shape of a man
in the shadows, the chair pushed back against
the siding, his face indistinguishable,
seated not with his legs casually crossed,
one foot free in the air, but with both shoes
flat on the slab, his hands cupping his knees,
like someone who’d waited a long time
to be called to another room. Each morning
his wife would help him down onto the chair,
his hands in her hands, easing him back,
and he’d stay there all day. There were birds
at the feeder to watch, a few nuthatches
coming and going—juncos and goldfinches,
bluejays, cardinals, sparrows—and trucks
rolling past on their way to the co-op,
their muscly young drivers in sunglasses,
just the one hand on the wheel, not one
glancing over to see him there under his roof,
just a shape among shapes among shadows,
a few feet back from the light at the edge.

*

Ted Kooser is, at 83, fully retired from teaching and public appearances but writing every day at his home in rural Nebraska. His most recent collection of poems is a fine letterpress limited printing of A SUITE OF MOONS, from Gibraltar Editions in Omaha. He is a former U. S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Two Poems by Ted Kooser

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In Darkness

From a porch swing, in under the dark of a roof,
and to keep the chains quiet, not swinging, I watched
somebody walk past with a flashlight, a woman
or man—there was no way of telling—a vague shape,

only part of the night, the beam’s end out in front
on an extendable leash, the small circle of light
scampering side to side, running forward to sniff
what was ahead, sometimes waiting a moment

for the person to catch up, then trotting in front,
as if proud of itself. It was a white Pomeranian
of light, or maybe a white miniature poodle,
I felt certain, and it was clearly excited to be out

for a walk after dark on a cool, starless and moonless
night in late summer. On up the street it tugged,
straining a little as if dragging the darkness behind,
pulling it over the now-fading scuffing of footfalls.

*

The Boat of the Past

Barefoot and wearing a robe and pajamas
he follows a dewy, worn path to a dock,
walks out to the end, and slowly climbs

down into the leaky Boat of the Past, tied
and waiting. And though it’s already full
of his memories it accepts him, settling

a little, slightly rocking, parts of the past
washing around him. He stored the oars
long ago, there being nothing left out there

to row toward but dizzying light, nothing
he wanted to net and bring back. These days
he just snatches up this or that memory,

lifts it into the light, wipes it dry on his robe.
One of these days someone will show up
while he’s dreaming, unknot the rope,

put a foot on the stern and shove, pushing
him onto the future, but for now he’ll just sit
in the sun, its hands warm on his shoulders.

*

Ted Kooser is, at 82, fully retired from teaching and public appearances but writing every day at his home in rural Nebraska. His most recent collection of poems is a fine letterpress limited printing of A SUITE OF MOONS, from Gibraltar Editions in Omaha. He is a former U. S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.

Two Poems by Ted Kooser

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Three Leaves

The first from a cottonwood, a rag
of a leaf, yellow with green stains,
the kind you might pick up by one
corner and cautiously sniff, a strange
oily paraffin odor. Next, from an elm,
in that dusty, green bleached down
to brown paint of a ’48 Plymouth,
rust holes all over it, the wind
pushing it rattling over a sidewalk,
then tipping it into the gutter.
Then one from an oak of some kind,
with the scuffed leatherette brown
of an old Samsonite suitcase, long
out of fashion, our last leaf today,
part of a matching set, handed down
autumn to autumn.

*

Dust Bath

Had it not been a good path
to scuff to the barn in the evening,
across the low slope of a hillside,
this shallow rut—with today one
brown cow in the lead, seven
following, heavy heads nodding
and blowing—would be grass
like the rest of the pasture, but
just now it leads up to and then
on from a place that stays put,
a shallow around which a kingbird
is flying as it waits for the last
cow to clop past before flitting in
for a vigorous dusting, just a puff
from this distance, like smoke
from a cannon that’s so far away
you can see it, not hear it, then
the bird shooting out and away,
too small and too far for an echo.

*

Ted Kooser is, at 82, fully retired from teaching and public appearances but writing every day at his home in rural Nebraska. His most recent collection of poems is a fine letterpress limited printing of A SUITE OF MOONS, from Gibraltar Editions in Omaha. He is a former U. S. Poet Laureate and winner of the Pulitzer Prize.