"I am 3/4ths Canadian, and one 4th New Englander - I had ancestors on both sides in the Revolutionary war." - Elizabeth Bishop
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Monday, January 13, 2020




Вспять

The hawk's glacial prey
pens its last moments in this
weak calligraphy.

                                    13 January 2018



[For several years now, I have been writing anagram-haiku.  The title of this one is in Russian, meaning "Back." It is a honkadori, alluding to the last stanza of Mandelstam's poem "Век" --

И с бессмысленной улыбкой
Вспять глядишь, жесток и слаб,
Словно зверь, когда-то гибкий,
На следы своих же лап.

[And with a senseless smile
You look back, cruel and weak,
Like a once flexible animal,
At your own paw prints.]

"Hawk glacial prey" is an anagram of the third line of my little poem. I liked the way the word 'weak' connected Mandelstam's poem to Elizabeth Bishop's "Questions of Travel." -- and how her "The End of March," too, is distantly evoked.].



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