October 25: Kay Ryan, Genius Award, and a Poem

Well, I want to offer you guys a poem tonight by a poet I admire.  Kay Ryan.  Former Poet Laureate of the United States.  Pulitzer Prize Winner.  MacArthur Genius.  Community college teacher and advocate.  She's really amazing.

Saint Marty hopes he grows up to be like her.

A Certain Kind of Eden 

 

by:  Kay Ryan

It seems like you could, but

you can’t go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It’s all too deep for that.

You’ve overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you’re given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those things

keep growing where we put them—

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

Kay Ryan--an amazing artist