Still here, still now

157 Pages·2008·0.68 MB·English

by  Pack

still here, still now
books by robert pack
poetry
Composing Voices
Elk in Winter
Rounding It Out
Minding the Sun
Fathering the Map: New and Selected Later Poems
Before it Vanishes: A Packet for Professor Pagels
Clayfeld Rejoices, Clayfeld Laments: A Sequence of Poems
Faces in a Single Tree: A Cycle of Dramatic Monologues
Waking to My Name: New and Selected Poems
Keeping Watch
Nothing but Light
Home from the Cemetery
Selected Poems (England)
Guarded by Women
A Stranger’s Privilege
The Irony of Joy
poetry for children
The Forgotten Secret
Then What Did You Do?
How to Catch a Crocodile
The Octopus Who Wanted to Juggle
literary criticism
Willing to Choose: Volition and Storytelling in Shakespeare’s
Major Plays
Belief and Uncertainty in the Poetry of Robert Frost
The Long View: Essays on the Discipline and Hope of Poetic Form
A∞rming Limits: Essays on Morality, Choice, and Poetic Form
Wallace Stevens: An Approach to His Poetry and Thought
Still Here, Still Now
robert pack
The University of Chicago Press / Chicago and London
Robert Pack is the Abernethy Professor of
Literature and Creative Writing Emeritus at
Middlebury College. He is the author of nineteen
books of poems, most recently Rounding It Out and
Elk in Winter, both published by the University of
Chicago Press.
The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637
The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London
© 2008 by The University of Chicago
All rights reserved. Published 2008
Printed in the United States of America
17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 1 2 3 4 5
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 64415- 8 (cloth)
isbn- 10: 0- 226- 64415- 4 (cloth)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Pack, Robert, 1929–
Still here, still now / Robert Pack.
p. cm.
isbn- 13: 978- 0- 226- 64415- 8 (alk. paper)
isbn- 10: 0- 226- 64415- 4 (alk. paper)
I. Title.
ps3566.a28s75 2008
811'.54—dc22
2007039509
o The paper used in this publication meets the
minimum requirements of the American National
Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence
of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ansi z39.48-
1992.
For Patty all the way

. . . and laugh
At gilded butterfl ies . . .
—william shakespeare (King Lear, V, 3)

contents
Acknowledgments, xiii
i. for you and you
Another March, 3
Facing You, 4
Paul Sees More Light, 5
Flute Music at Noon, 6
You Are the One, 7
The Blue Vase, 9
Mountain Dawn, 11
No Reconciling, 13
Tornado Consolation, 14
Moonlight Mirrorings, 15
The Story’s End, 16
Logical Speculation, 18
Grandson, 21
Comforting, 25
ii. short and tall tales
Reincarnation, 29
Literary Ravens, 31
Happiness, 34
Four Guys Cross Montana, 38
The Stutterer, 41
Arguing Friends, 43
The Teacher Shakes Up His Class, 46
Brothers, 47
Pride and Laughter, 52