Today I finished another poem. It's called Love The New Country. It's about 40 lines long. Finished: that's a laugh; I'll go on tweaking it every time I look at it, probably for years. That's what poetry is. Every word must be perfect, since there are so few of them, and perfection changes, sometimes every day, you'd be surprised. I worked weeks on this thing. Unlike prose, which can be written steadily, sometimes whole pages in a burst, poetry gets squeezed out one line at a time, and in my case lines must rhyme. You may ask why I do this. These poems--I have about 50 pages of them now, perhaps more--will almost certainly never be published, will be seen probably by under ten people I feel close to, and will never earn me a cent. I who wrote for money for over 50 years. Apart from my one year in the New York Police Department I have had no income during all that time except what my writing brought in, not one cent. Thirty books and much much else, My God! Yet here I am writing for, you might say, fun. More because writing is a hard habit to break, I think. A writer must write. He can't help himself. I can't anyway. Besides, poetry is new for me. It's a challenge, and challenges excite me still. This poem will be seen by my brother and one or two other family members; by John Robben, a literary friend from college; by Tim Mahin, another literary friend of many years. I'll also put it on Dan Cordtz' timeline--Dan and I were colleagues in Paris in the 60s, he on the Wall Street Journal, me on the Times. That's as close to going public with it as I can do right now. I know not a soul in the poetry world, not a single editor anywhere, and at this stage of my life I am not about to send it (or any of the others) in over the transom to land on somebody's slush pile.
Love the New Country
Each love is a new country newly found
The lover, who is not a lover yet
Intrigued by the view, the lay of the ground
Moves up as close as he can get
Evoking reactions he did not seek
Nearly everything seems unique
Colors that change with the changing light
That glow with brilliance even at night
Delicious new tastes to explore
And music he's never heard before
Exotic aromas to enjoy
And contours he might one day employ
So many marvels fill him with wonder
His life feels torn asunder
It's just another country, nothing more
He tells himself, don't lose your head
But delights galore
Seem in store
They are like flags waving
They create a certain craving
And the rest of his warning stays unsaid
He's got this new country on the brain
It's not something he can explain
Mingle in the market place but don't gawk
Learn the insouciant walk
The language he hears, how quaint
Differences are faint
But it must be learned--he'll learn it
His former phrase book, burn it
Study the new one till down by heart
The wrong word--who knows--could set him apart
But from up close the new country is vast
And in places defenses are massed
Parts can't be reached
Much less breached
It's less knowable than he had thought
And he is distraught
Each man ultimately is defeated
It's nothing he could fix if repeated
The new country was a vision
Lacking a certain precision
However much he wants to enthrone her
He can't own her
All of her he can never possess
He'll have to be satisfied with less
Is it enough to still have her charms?
The way she fits his encircling arms?
A man in love since the day he found her
All he wants is to be around her
Robert Daley
November 2014