The Millennial Pedestrian

TMP is going on vacation – all the way to New Zealand, where we’ll be biking on the South Island. It may be inspiring (I hope so) but there won’t be any opportunities to stop and post poetry. So until early in March, the blog will be idle. That doesn’t mean you can’t stop by and browse – there are a lot of poems here now. And although I’ve never written a poem about New Zealand, I did do one called “Tasmania” a while ago.

Meanwhile, here’s a poem for the road. It, like “Tasmania,” is geographic, but not really. By Kay Ryan, it’s called “Dutch,” and in a very short span it creates a surprising number of memorable, sharp ideas and images. While she uses a kind of cartoon Dutchness to characterize “much of life,” I think it works. I especially admire “black-suspendered” to, in one stroke, tell you exactly what you need to know about the tulip magnates.

Dutch

    By Kay Ryan

Much of life
is Dutch
one-digit
operations

in which
legions of
big robust
people crouch

behind
badly cracked
dike systems

attached
by the thumbs

their wide
balloon-pantsed rumps
up-ended to the
northern sun

while, back
in town, little
black-suspendered
tulip magnates
stride around.
 

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 10th, 2008.
It's part of the Prose category.
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