"The Thing That Eats the Heart," by Stanley Kunitz
The Thing That Eats the Heart
by Stanley Kunitz
The thing that eats the heart comes wild with years.
It died last night, or was it wounds before,
But somehow crawls around, inflamed with need,
Jingling its medals at the fang-scratched door.
We were not unprepared: with lamp and book
We sought the wisdome of another age
Until we heard the action of the bolt.
A little wind investigates the page.
No use pretending to the pitch of sleep;
By turnings we are known, our times and dates
Examined in the courts of either/or
While armless griefs mount lewd and headless doubts.
It pounces in the dark, all pity-ripe,
An enemy as soft as tears or cancer,
In whose embrace we fall, as to a sickness
Whose toxins in our cells cry sin and danger.
Hero of crossroads, how shall we defend
This creature-lump whose charity is art
When its own self turns Christian-cannibal:
The thing that eats the heart is mostly heart.
I was sad to hear that Stanley Kunitz passed away over the weekend. He was 100 years old, which is a nice long life by any measure, but the really amazing thing is that Kunitz wrote some of his most evocative and original poetry when he was in his 80s and 90s. It showcases one of my favorite things about his work: his ability to make formal poetry feel timeless, like he's tapping into old things in order to express new ideas. Kunitz's work evolved over the course of his long career -- he began publishing his poetry in the 1930s and continued until shortly before his death -- but it maintains that sense of an artist working beyond time. I'll be featuring his work over the next few days, in tribute.
by Stanley Kunitz
The thing that eats the heart comes wild with years.
It died last night, or was it wounds before,
But somehow crawls around, inflamed with need,
Jingling its medals at the fang-scratched door.
We were not unprepared: with lamp and book
We sought the wisdome of another age
Until we heard the action of the bolt.
A little wind investigates the page.
No use pretending to the pitch of sleep;
By turnings we are known, our times and dates
Examined in the courts of either/or
While armless griefs mount lewd and headless doubts.
It pounces in the dark, all pity-ripe,
An enemy as soft as tears or cancer,
In whose embrace we fall, as to a sickness
Whose toxins in our cells cry sin and danger.
Hero of crossroads, how shall we defend
This creature-lump whose charity is art
When its own self turns Christian-cannibal:
The thing that eats the heart is mostly heart.
I was sad to hear that Stanley Kunitz passed away over the weekend. He was 100 years old, which is a nice long life by any measure, but the really amazing thing is that Kunitz wrote some of his most evocative and original poetry when he was in his 80s and 90s. It showcases one of my favorite things about his work: his ability to make formal poetry feel timeless, like he's tapping into old things in order to express new ideas. Kunitz's work evolved over the course of his long career -- he began publishing his poetry in the 1930s and continued until shortly before his death -- but it maintains that sense of an artist working beyond time. I'll be featuring his work over the next few days, in tribute.