The Changes
People don't act
like they act
in real life
in real life. They
are slower
and record the passive changes
of atmosphere.
Or change themselves
into green persian dogs
and birds.
When you see one
you know the world is a contrivance.
It has proverbiality.
People are poor.
--Robert Creeley
I copied this poem into a notebook in 1970, in Buffalo, where I got to know Bob and Bobbie Creeley. He was teaching at the University, and was instrumental in getting me admitted to the writing program, though in the end I didn't stay. I also wrote down something he said, though perhaps a paraphrase: to find the form that allows you to say all that you think--this is the artist's great search.
I don't know where I first saw the poem, but probably I had just gotten a copy of his collection The Charm: Early and Uncollected Poems, published by Four Seasons Foundation in San Francisco. It amuses me that it didn't make it into his earlier collection, For Love: Poems 1950-1960, unless it was more recent and in the "uncollected" category. It was one of my favorites then, and still is.
The painting reproduced at the top is by Rene Magritte.
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