Last week, Kay Ryan was named the new poet laureate of the United States, replacing the estimable Charles Simic. In addition to being a fine poet, Ryan is a fellow California community college professor; she teaches English at the College of Marin. I wasn’t very familiar with Ryan’s work before the announcement of her selection, but of what I’ve tracked down, this is my favorite so far.
Things Shouldn’t Be So Hard
A life should leave
deep tracks:
ruts where she
went out and back
to get the mail
or move the hose
around the yard;
where she used to
stand before the sink,
a worn-out place;
beneath her hand
the china knobs
rubbed down to
white pastilles;
the switch she
used to feel for
in the dark
almost erased.
Her things should
keep her marks.
The passage
of a life should show;
it should abrade.
And when life stops,
a certain space—
however small —
should be left scarred
by the grand and
damaging parade.
Things shouldn’t
be so hard.
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