The Choice
I had to choose the one I’d rather be
A heart of stone, or else a flower
Untrue to you, or else untrue to me
The choice was clear to you, and clear to me
Under your thumb, or under my own power
I had to choose the one I’d rather be
A man who’s caged is never quite so free
No matter whom he stands with in the shower
Untrue to you, or else untrue to me
You don’t concur, you surely don’t agree
To you it was mere minutes, and not hours
I had to choose the one I’d rather be
The self can be a whole, or just debris
A life can be so sweet, or can turn sour
Untrue to you, or else untrue to me
I danced with you, but sometimes we were three
Some birds will build a nest, and some a bower
Untrue to you, or else untrue to me
I made the choice, the one that had to be.
I Hear the Materials of This World Weeping
Sometimes I think the materials of this world must be weeping.
I swear I can hear the wailing of the bricks and mortar,
I hear sobs coming from the dust and detritus of stones,
I hear the electrical wires screaming from their entrapment
between crumbled walls and I can hear, I’m certain, the plumbing
and the copper wiring, the plastic tubing and asbestos insulation
crying from amidst the rubble, I can listen to the plaster, unable
any longer to hold up the plasterboard and to the large staples
that have held rubber gaskets and exhaust pipes to the walls
and it seems to me sometimes that I am living near a hospital
for the moldings and structures of this world, where so many
objects are spending night after night in the intensive care unit,
where there is such a shortage of nurses and doctors to tend to
the life-threatening emergencies that have befallen limestone
and cement, the ceramic tiles of kitchens and bathrooms,
the reinforced concrete, adobe, lumber, and steel beams all
now gathered in shards in their corners, praying for comfort
and, just beneath them, almost overlooked amidst the chaos,
I can hear the cries of human beings, scarcely audible.
Objects, An Apology
All my life I have loved and desired women
but now, as I watch my beautiful wife
painting the front gate so patiently and perfectly
it occurs to me that I have not loved objects enough,
that I have not loved the front gate,
and the now-perfectly-stained shutters
nor even the stone wall holding up my studio
enough, that I have been negligent towards my desk
and the picnic table beneath the arbor in front of me
and, somewhat less so, harbored an indifference
toward the echinacea and butterfly bush.
Now that I am well on my way toward becoming
an object myself, I am taking an inventory
of the pens, the candles, even the small pillows
that gently buffer my brain into the air,
and the wooden bench on which I was just
lying and taking in the sun, and the ceramic vase
I so carelessly dropped the other day in a haste
to satisfy my own earthly hungers, and now
I am watching my wife, with her meticulous care
of everything that breathes and doesn’t breathe,
with her loving and generous care even of me
and I am feeling ashamed of what I have
become—a man so interested in flesh
he has ignored both wood and stone,
even ignored the incredible beauty of his own wife,
who renders all objects luminous with her patience
and care, who is kind enough to consider even me
beautiful. O forgive me, dear objects, forgive me,
dear wife, for I have sinned against all of you,
let me please spend the rest of my days
with a small paintbrush in hand, painting
all the crevices and corners I have missed
and blessing the heavy wooden-and-metal chairs
surrounding the picnic table, and feeling blessed
myself for having found such a wife, for living
in a world in which there is paper and wood
and stone and porcelain and steel, and may
whatever god is watching over this object-filled world
forgive me, and may my lovely wife forgive me,
and let me breathe more gratitude into this object-filled world
and rest my head tonight on these pillows I so love.
Michael Blumenthal was previously Director of Creative Writing at Harvard and, more recently, Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Immigration Clinic at the West Virginia University College of Law and has taught at universities throughout the world. In addition to ten books of poetry, most recently Correcting World: Poems Selected & New, 1980–2024, he has published a novel, a memoir, short stories, essays, and translations. He spends his time between Washington, D.C., and in the small Hungarian village of Hegymagas near Lake Balaton.