Not to Know How to Live

1943 –

              All modesty is false modesty
when it comes to poems,
              or to the silence
in which poems begin
              before they are words,
when they are still daisies
              at the foot of the dead Christ
in an anonymous painting,
              13th century. Not to know how to live
is one thing, and nothing
              to be ashamed of.
But not to know
              how to sit in front of those daisies
with tears in my eyes:
              what a waste that would be.

The Need Is So Great

Sometimes I just sit like this at the window and watch
the darkness come. If I’m smart, I’ll put on Bach.

I’m thinking now of how far it always seems there is to go.
Maybe it is too easy that I speak so often

of late last light on a December day,
of that stubborn grass that somehow still remains green

Jim Moore

2022

Five Charms in Praise of Bewilderment

At first when you leave town,

the dog and I maintain dignified silence.
           After no more than two hours
I’m talking to her, after three
           she’s telling me the story of her life.
I nod my head at every word,
           encouraging her
to take all the time she needs

I have the vice

Jim Moore

2018

Love in the Ruins

1
I remember my mother toward the end,

folding the tablecloth after dinner
so carefully,
as if it were the flag
of a country that no longer existed,
but once had ruled the world.

2
7 A.M. and the barefoot man

leaves his lover's house
          to go back to his basement room
across the alley. I nod hello,
          continuing to pick
the first small daffodils
          which just yesterday began to bloom.

3
Helicopter flies overhead

Jim Moore

2018

Poems

Not to Know How to Live

More by this poet

The Need Is So Great

Five Charms in Praise of Bewilderment

Love in the Ruins

Poems

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Not to Know How to Live

More by this poet

The Need Is So Great

Five Charms in Praise of Bewilderment

Love in the Ruins

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