A Ghost

1955 –

erodes the line between being and place becomes the place of being time and so
the house turns in the snow is why a ghost always has the architecture of a storm
The architect tore down room after room until the sound stopped. A ghost is one
among the ages at the edge of a cliff empty sails on the bay even when a ship
or the house moves off in fog asks you out loud to let the stranger in

Chaïm Soutine: The Errant Road, 1939

as if a road could be otherwise but geometry
defies the man who is lost on the road that
the trees want to reach and reach down
to his walking on
along a verticality that defies
the requirements of normative perspective
and so he will reach, and the trees against chalk—
the gesture of the arm extended is central
to all Soutine’s work be it a branch or an ache
or a split of the face, going off. In this case
can you say that a man is lost just because
you cannot distinguish him from the background.

Cole Swensen

2016

From “Thoreau”

In the essay “A Winter Walk,” which predated the more famous essay “Walking”
by a few years, Thoreau paid particular attention to the astonishing array of whites

from fog to snow to frost to the crystals growing outward on threads of light. The
fact that white is separately known. That it is its own wildness, entirely exterior,

like all weather you notice is a version of an open room coming through

Cole Swensen

2014

Poems

A Ghost

More by this poet

Chaïm Soutine: The Errant Road, 1939

From “Thoreau”

Anamorphosis (audio only)

Poems

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A Ghost

More by this poet

Chaïm Soutine: The Errant Road, 1939

From “Thoreau”

Anamorphosis (audio only)

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