Poem for a Tuesday — “This Morning” Raymond Carver

This morning was something. A little snow
lay on the ground. The sun floated in a clear
blue sky. The sea was blue, and blue-green,
as far as the eye could see.
Scarcely a ripple. Calm. I dressed and went
for a walk — determined not to return
until I took in what Nature had to offer.
I passed close to some old, bent-over trees.
Crossed a field strewn with rocks
where snow had drifted. Kept going
until I reached the bluff.
Where I gazed at the sea, and the sky, and
the gulls wheeling over the white beach
far below. All lovely. All bathed in a pure
cold light. But, as usual, my thoughts
began to wander. I had to will
myself to see what I was seeing
and nothing else. I had to tell myself this is what
mattered, not the other. (And I did see it,
for a minute or two!) For a minute or two
it crowded out the usual musings on
what was right, and what was wrong — duty,
tender memories, thoughts of death, how I should treat
with my former wife. All the things
I hoped would go away this morning.
The stuff I live with every day. What
I’ve trampled on in order to stay alive.
But for a minute or two I did forget
myself and everything else. I know I did.
For when I turned back i didn’t know
where I was. Until some birds rose up
from the gnarled trees. And flew
in the direction I needed to be going.

in Ploughshares, vol. 11, no. 4, 1985.

---

Raymond Carver was best known for his sublime short stories. He had working class roots, growing up in rural Washington where his hard-drinking father worked in a sawmill and his mother waited tables. At age nineteen, while working in a California sawmill, he met and married sixteen-year-old Maryann Burk. His interest in writing was stoked by undergraduate work at Chico State University, where he was mentored by John Gardner and Richard Cortez Day. Carver supported his family as a delivery man, janitor, and library assistant, often rushing to complete his tasks so that he could spend time writing. Carver struggled with alcohol addiction, quipping once that he gave up writing and took to full-time drinking. He mastered his addiction with the help of Alcoholics Anonymous. His first short story collection, Will You Please Be Quiet, Please?, was published in 1976. It was shortlisted for the National Book Award. He died of lung cancer at the age of fifty.

---