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    Raft
    Raft
    Raft
    Ebook116 pages47 minutes

    Raft

    By Ted Kooser

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Delightfully universal, Raft by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ted Kooser travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to life’s shared experiences and emotions—illness, aging, beauty, and love.

    Raft is our fourth collection of poetry from Pulitzer Prize-winner and former U.S. Poet Laureate, Ted Kooser. Open in his desire to write for the everyday reader, these poems maintain the open-handed and accessible style that thousands have come to love. Yet, deeply imagistic and metaphorically rich, Raft shows us that even the simplest of objects, the simplest of actions, can become a portal. A boy feeding a goldfish becomes a meditation on loneliness. Scraps of gauze open the door to a study on happiness. Both local and delightfully universal, Raft travels the Midwest landscape, attuned to the shared experiences and emotions of life—illness and aging, beauty and love. Some poems, nostalgia-wrapped, cradle elegies for lost family and friends. Adrift on life rafts of language, this book is a lesson in intentional observation, a celebration of the small, quiet wonders of life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopper Canyon Press
    Release dateSep 17, 2024
    ISBN9781619323063
    Raft

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      Book preview

      Raft - Ted Kooser

      RAFT

      At the said-to-be-bottomless pond

      at the sandpit, the raft we discovered

      was a heavy barn door, maybe ten feet

      by twelve, halfway in, halfway out

      of the water where others had left it,

      probably older boys, always the first

      to find something good, use it awhile,

      then leave it for us, Billy and Larry,

      Danny and me, floating it out onto

      the water, wading in after it, holding

      on to its edge as we slid down the slope

      up to our shoulders, then one by one

      helped each other climb on, soaked

      and shivering, standing to balance,

      arms spread, each to a corner, facing

      each other, frightened but laughing,

      not a forethought among us for a pole

      to push out with, nor a plank for an oar,

      as we trusted that door as it floated

      not on but just under the surface,

      one corner sinking, then slowly lifting

      as another went down, ankle-deep

      over the cold, bottomless darkness.

      Seventy years later, I still feel that door

      sinking under my weight, can still see

      the white faces of Larry and Billy

      and Danny looking across into mine

      as we held our arms wide, as if to keep

      some wild, free, invisible creature

      there at the center from running away,

      and at eighty I know what it was.

      I

      A MAN WITH A RAKE

      Under his faded, soft fisherman’s hat

      and lifting his face to the early spring sun,

      he’s stopped for a moment to rest, up to

      his ankles in leaves he’s drawn into

      the center of a circle of green. He’s propped

      some of his weight on the rake, the end

      of its handle locked in a knot of his fingers

      and this pressed to a cheek, his eyes closed.

      Before this he was watching the rake

      tick around clockwise, minute to minute,

      a fine afternoon passing forever away,

      but he’s figured out now how to slow it

      all down, both hands clasped on the end

      of the second hand, holding it back.

      IT DOESN’T TAKE MUCH

      And of these one and all I weave the song of myself.

      Maybe an hour before sunrise, driving alone

      on the way to reach somewhere, seeing,

      set back from the highway, the dark shape

      of a farmhouse up against deeper darkness,

      a light in one window. Or farther along

      into a gray, watery dawn, passing

      a McDonald’s as brightly lit as a city,

      and seeing one man, in a ball cap, alone

      in a booth, not looking down at his table

      but ahead, over the empty booths. Or

      maybe an hour farther, in full daylight,

      at a place where a bus stops, seeing

      a woman somewhere in her forties,

      dressed for the cold: white earmuffs,

      a red-and-white team jacket, blue jeans

      and mukluks, one knit mitten holding

      a slack empty mitten, her bare hand

      extended, pinching a lit cigarette,

      dry leaves—the whole deck of a new day—

      fanned out face down in the gutter, but

      she’s not stooping to turn over a card,

      instead watching a long ash grow

      even longer at the ends of her fingers.

      Just that much might be enough for one

      morning to make you feel part of it all.

      UNDER A FORTY-WATT BULB

      These days he goes down the steep cellar stairs

      sideways, facing the wall, both hands clamped on

      the rail as he lowers a foot to the next step,

      not looking down but feeling the way with the toe

      of his slipper, placing one foot firmly, then waiting

      a moment before lowering the other foot, fitting

      it next to the first, his thin leather slippers

      parked side by side as they’d be in a closet. Then

      loosening one hand, sliding it down, getting

      a good grip, the other hand following, gripping,

      one foot swinging out, swinging down, its toe

      tapping the riser to feel it, then setting it down,

      the other foot following, step down to step without

      looking, his eyes

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