“Some Playthings” by John Hollander – October 28, 1929 – August 17, 2013

It is sad to report that the poet John Hollander died Saturday in Brandford, Conn. He was 83.

JOHN HOLLANDER

October 28, 1929 – August 17, 2013

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Some Playthings

A trembling brown bird

standing in the high grass turns

out to be a blown

oakleaf after all.

Was the leaf playing bird, or

was it “just” the wind

playing with the leaf?

Was my very noticing

itself at play with

an irregular

frail patch of brown in the cold

April afternoon?

These questions that hang

motionless in the now-stilled

air: what of their

frailty, in the light

of even the most fragile

of problematic

substances like all

these momentary playthings

of recognition?

Questions that are asked

of questions: no less weighty

and lingeringly

dark than the riddles

posed by any apparent

bird or leaf or breath

of wind, instruments

probing what we feel we know

for some kind of truth.

Excerpt from A DRAFT OF LIGHT. Copyright © 2008 by John Hollander. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.