Happy Birthday, Stanley Kunitz! | Poems Rethabile Likes
🎂 Happy Birthday, Stanley Kunitz!
Poet • Pulitzer Winner • U.S. Poet Laureate • born 29 July 1905
Today we celebrate the birthday of Stanley Kunitz — one of America's most enduring and beloved poets. Here is his masterful poem, "The Layers," a meditation on loss, resilience, and the ongoing work of transformation.
The Layers
I have walked through many lives,
some of them my own,
and I am not who I was,
though some principle of being
abides, from which I struggle
not to stray.
When I look behind,
as I am compelled to look
before I can gather strength
to proceed on my journey,
I see the milestones dwindling
toward the horizon
and the slow fires trailing
from the abandoned camp-sites,
over which scavenger angels
wheel on heavy wings.
Oh, I have made myself a tribe
out of my true affections,
and my tribe is scattered!
How shall the heart be reconciled
to its feast of losses?
In a rising wind
the manic dust of my friends,
those who fell along the way,
bitterly stings my face.
Yet I turn, I turn,
exulting somewhat,
with my will intact to go
wherever I need to go,
and every stone on the road
precious to me.
In my darkest night,
when the moon was covered
and I roamed through wreckage,
a nimbus-clouded voice
directed me:
“Live in the layers,
not on the litter.”
Though I lack the art
to decipher it,
no doubt the next chapter
in my book of transformations
is already written.
I am not done with my changes.
Stanley Kunitz (1905–2006) was an American poet. He served as U.S. Poet Laureate twice (1974–1976 and 2000–2001). He won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1959 for Selected Poems 1928–1958. His work is known for its introspective depth, lyrical precision, and engagement with themes of mortality, memory, and love. He was also a noted translator and editor.
Read more: Poetry Foundation • ThriftBooks
Read more: Poetry Foundation • ThriftBooks
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