{"id":3038,"date":"2013-03-27T21:44:00","date_gmt":"2013-03-28T01:44:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/?p=3038"},"modified":"2015-06-22T12:56:17","modified_gmt":"2015-06-22T16:56:17","slug":"apology-by-richard-wilbur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/2013\/03\/27\/apology-by-richard-wilbur\/","title":{"rendered":"Apology by Richard Wilbur"},"content":{"rendered":"

A word sticks in the wind’s throat;
A wind-launch drifts in the wells of rye;
Sometimes, in broad silence,
The hanging apples distill their darkness.<\/p>\n

You, in a green dress, calling, and with brown hair,
Who come by the field-path now, whose name I say
Softly, forgive me love if also I call you
Wind’s word, apple-heart, haven of grasses.<\/em><\/p>\n

I love the language here, especially the "wind-launch," with its connotations of air caught in the depths of long grasses. And the apples, "distill[ing] their darkness" — what does that mean? I think of tangy fermentation, cider, fall, secrecy, something somber, witnessing and slightly menacing.<\/p>\n

And that enjambment in the second stanze — "whose name I say \/ Softly " — wow! A word sticks in the speaker’s throat as a word sticks in the wind’s throat. It’s such a regretful poem, a melancholy evocation of thwarted feeling.<\/p>\n

This entry was originally posted at http:\/\/modernwizard.dreamwidth.org\/1490396.html<\/a>. You can comment here, but I’d prefer it if you’d comment on my DW<\/a> using OpenID.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A word sticks in the wind’s throat;A wind-launch drifts in the wells of rye;Sometimes, in broad silence,The hanging apples distill their darkness. You, in a green dress, calling, and with brown hair,Who come by the field-path now, whose name I saySoftly, forgive me love if also I call youWind’s word, apple-heart, haven of grasses. I love… Continue reading Apology by Richard Wilbur<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[731],"class_list":["post-3038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3038"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4964,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3038\/revisions\/4964"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/oddpla.net\/modernwizard\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}