Creeley, Robert

English

University of New Mexico

New Mexico Quarterly
Volume 37 | Issue 4 Article 13
1967
Follow the Drinking Gourd
Robert Creeley
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Creeley, Robert. "Follow the Drinking Gourd." New Mexico Quarterly 37, 4 (1967). https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol37/
iss4/13
fPresent again
present present
again present
present again
395
Robert Creeley
"Follow the Drinking Gourd . . "
Passage of time.
The sun shone level
from the left-
hand side of
leaves falling,
knives, a windspout
of nostalgic faces,
into the air.
Car glides forward.
Drive from Bloomington,
Indiana to Lexington,
Ky. Here the walls
of fall, the stone,
the hill, the trucks
in front with
the unseen drivers..
Stoney Lonesome. Gnaw-
bone. A house
sits back from
the road.
AChristmas
present-all
present and ac-
counted for? Sir?
the land-a flat-
seeming distance,
left, east? South?
Sun shines.
Goon. Tell
me, them, him,
her, their
apparent forms.
The "present dented,"
call it "long
distance," come
here home. Then
a scarecrow there, here a
snowman. Where in
the world then an-
other place?
Drive on
what seems an
exceptionally smooth
and even surface,
1
Creeley: Follow the Drinking Gourd
Published by UNM Digital Repository, 1967
396 ROBERT CREELEY
2
New Mexico Quarterly, Vol. 37 [1967], Iss. 4, Art. 13
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmq/vol37/iss4/13


Follow the Drinking Gourd

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=4579&context=nmq

Follow the Drinking Gourd

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