Anecdote of the Jar
I placed a jar in Tennessee,
And round it was, upon a hill.
It made the slovenly wilderness
Surround that hill.
The wilderness rose up to it,
And sprawled around, no longer wild.
The jar was round upon the ground
And tall and of a port in air.
It took dominion every where.
The jar was gray and bare.
It did not give of bird or bush,
Like nothing else in Tennessee.
As I was sitting at my son’s nine hour karate test Saturdayin Dallas reading for class, this Wallace Stevens poem popped into mind. I think it was the defining and redefining defining and redefining my definitions like nothing else in Tennessee. One of my students a few weeks ago said as I started rambling off on some subject, “Man, do you have a story for every situation?” I think it would be more accurate, or at least more pleasant, to ask if I had a poem.
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