The woman is not just a pleasure, nor even a problem. She is a meniscus that allows the absolute to have a shape, that lets him skate however briefly on the mystery, her presence luminous on the ordinary and the grand. Like the odor at night in Pittsburgh’s empty streets after summer rain on maples and sycamore.

Jack Gilbert

Categorized in : Night Rain Summer

Being alive is so extraordinary I don’t know why people limit it to riches, pride, security—all of those things life is built on. People miss so much because they want money and comfort and pride, a house and a job to pay for the house. And they have to get a car. You can’t see anything from a car. It’s moving too fast. People take vacations. That’s their reward—the vacation. Why not the life?

Jack Gilbert

pride jobs moving

We must unlearn the constellations to see the stars.

Jack Gilbert

constellations lovely stars

The heart lies to itself because it must.

Jack Gilbert

heart lying

We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world.

Jack Gilbert

ruthlessness acceptance world

I dream of lost vocabularies that might express some of what we no longer can.

Jack Gilbert

vocabulary dream might

I ask myself what is the sound of women? What is the word for that still thing I have hunted inside them for so long? Deep inside the avalanche of joy, the thing deeper in the dark, and deeper still in the bed where we are lost. Deeper, deeper down where a woman's heart is holding its breath, where something very far away in that body is becoming something we don't have a name for.

Jack Gilbert

women dark heart

Our heart wanders lost in the dark woods. Our dream wrestles in the castle of doubt. But there’s music in us. Hope is pushed down but the angel flies up again taking us with her.

Jack Gilbert

angel dream heart

We must risk delight. We can do without pleasure, but not delight. Not enjoyment. We must have the stubbornness to accept our gladness in the ruthless furnace of this world. To make injustice the only measure of our attention is to praise the Devil.

Jack Gilbert

devil risk attention

Why do so manysettle for so little? I don't understand why they're not greedy for what's inside them.

Jack Gilbert

greedy littles

How astonishing it is that language can almost mean, and frightening that it does not quite.

Jack Gilbert

language doe mean

I like ornament at the right time, but I don't want a poem to be made out of decoration ... When I read the poems that matter to me, it stuns me how much the presence of the heart-in all its forms-is endlessly available there. To experience ourselves in an important way just knocks me out. It puzzles me why people have given that up for cleverness. Some of them are ingenious, more ingenious than I am, but so many of them aren't any good at being alive.

Jack Gilbert

important heart people

WAKING AT NIGHT The blue river is grey at morning and evening. There is twilight at dawn and dusk. I lie in the dark wondering if this quiet in me now is a beginning or an end.

Jack Gilbert

twilight morning lying

What we feel most has no name but amber, archers, cinnamon, horses and birds.

Jack Gilbert

archer horse names

We are resident inside with the machinery, a glimmering spread throughout the apparatus. We exist with a wind whispering inside and our moon flexing. Amid the ducts, inside the basilica of bones. The flesh is a neighborhood, but not the life.

Jack Gilbert

whispering moon wind

Are the angels of her bed the angels who come near me alone in mine? Are the green trees in her window the color is see in ripe plums? If she always sees backward and upside down without knowing it what chance do we have? I am haunted by the feeling that she is saying melting lords of death, avalanches, rivers and moments of passing through, And I am replying, "Yes, yes. Shoes and pudding.

Jack Gilbert

shoes color angel

Everyone forgets Icarus also flew.

Jack Gilbert

icarus flew forget

Suddenly this defeat. This rain. The blues gone gray And the browns gone gray And yellow A terrible amber. In the cold streets Your warm body. In whatever room Your warm body. Among all the people Your absence The people who are always Not you. I have been easy with trees Too long. Too familiar with mountains. Joy has been a habit. Now Suddenly This rain.

Jack Gilbert

rain yellow long

We are all burning in time, but each is consumed

Jack Gilbert

burning speed time

Duende I can't remember her name. It's not as though I've been in bed with that many women. The truth is I can't even remember her face. I kind of know how strong her thighs were, and her beauty. But what I won't forget is the way she tore open the barbecued chicken with her hands, and wiped the grease on her breasts.

Jack Gilbert

strong names hands

Fame is a lot of fun, but it's not interesting. I loved being noticed and praised, even the banquets. But they didn't have anything that I wanted. After about six months, I found it boring.

Jack Gilbert

six-months fun interesting