WEBVTT

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If I had read this quote
from Flannery O'Connor

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before I wrote the poem, it
would stand at the top of it

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as an epigraph.

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But I'll read it to you anyway.

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She wrote once that a
"writer should never

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be ashamed of staring.

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There is nothing that does
not require attention."

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And this poem is about a
habit that poets, I think,

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tend to have.

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It's called-- the
title is "Monday."

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The birds are in their trees,
the toast is in the toaster,

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and the poets are
at their windows.

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They are at their
windows in every section

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of the tangerine of earth--

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the Chinese poets looking up
at the moon, the American poets

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gazing out at the pink and
blue ribbons of sunrise.

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The clerks are at their
desks, the miners are down

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in their mines, and the poets
are looking out their windows,

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maybe with a cigarette,
a cup of tea,

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and maybe a flannel shirt
or a bathrobe is involved.

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The proofreaders are
playing the ping-pong game

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of proofreading, glancing back
and forth from page to page.

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The chefs are dicing
celery and potatoes,

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and the poets are
at their windows

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because it is their job, for
which they are paid nothing

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every Friday afternoon.

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Which window it hardly
seems to matter,

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though many have a favorite.

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But there is always
something to see,

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a bird grasping a thin
branch, the headlights

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of a taxi rounding a corner,
those two boys in wool caps

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angling across the street.

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The fishermen bob
in their boats,

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the linemen climb
their round poles,

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the barbers wait by
their mirrors and chairs.

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And the poets continue to stare
at a cracked birdbath or a limb

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knocked down by the wind.

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By now it should
go without saying,

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what the oven is to the baker
and the berry-stained blouse

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to the dry cleaner, so
the window is to the poet.

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Just think, before the
invention of the window,

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the poets would have to put
on a jacket or a winter hat

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to go outside, or remain indoors
with only a wall to stare at.

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And when I say a
wall, I do not mean

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a wall with striped
wallpaper and a sketch

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of a cow in a frame.

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I mean a cold wall
of fieldstones,

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the wall of the medieval sonnet,
the original woman's heart

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of stone, the stone caught in
the throat of her poet-lover.

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