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And though one usually regards it merely as a convenience
To have the boiling water available for bath or table
Occasionally there is someone around who understands
The importance of this moment for the water–maybe a saint,
Maybe a poet, maybe a crazy man, or just someone temporarily disturbed
With his mind “floating,” in a sense, away from his deepest
Personal concerns to more “unreal” things. A lot of poetry
Can come from perceptions of this kind, as well as a lot of insane conversations.
Intense people can sometimes get stuck on topics like these
And keep you far into the night with them. Still, it is true
That the water has just started to boil. How important
For the water! And now I see that the tree is waving in the wind
(I assume it is the wind)–at least, its branches are. In order to see
Hidden meanings, one may have to ignore
The most exciting ones, those that are most directly appealing
And yet it is only these appealing ones that, often, one can trust
To make one’s art solid and true, just as it is sexual attraction
One has to trust, often, in love. So the boiling water’s seriousness
Is likely to go unobserved until the exact strange moment
(And what a temptation it is to end the poem here
With some secret thrust) when it involuntarily comes into the mind
And then one can write of it. A serious moment for this poem will be when it ends,
It will be like the water’s boiling, that for which we’ve waited
Without trying to think of it too much, since “a watched pot never boils,”
And a poem with its ending figured out is difficult to write.
Once the water is boiling, the heater has a choice: to look at it
And let it boil and go on seeing what it does, or to take it off and use the water for tea,
Chocolate or coffee or beef consomme. You don’t drink the product then
Until the water has ceased to boil, for otherwise
It would burn your tongue. Even hot water is dangerous and has a thorn
Like a rose, or a horn like the baby ram. Modest hot water, and the tree
Blowing in the wind. The connection here is how serious is it for the tree
To have its arms wave (its branches)? How did it ever get such flexibility
In the first place? and who put the boiling potentiality into water?
A tree will not boil, nor will the wind. Think of the dinners
We could have, and the lunches, and the dreams, if only they did.
But that is not to think of what things are really about. For the tree
I don’t know how serious it is to be waving, though water’s boiling
Is more dramatic, is more like a storm, high tide
And the ship goes down, but it comes back up as coffee, chocolate, or tea.
How many people I have drunk tea or coffee with
And thought about the boiling water hardly at all, just waiting for it to boil
So there could be coffee or chocolate or tea. And then what?
The body stimulated, the brain alarmed, grounds in the pot,
The tree, waving, out the window, perhaps with a little more elan
Because we saw it that way, because the water boiled, because we drank tea.
The water boils almost every time the same old way
And still it is serious, because it is boiling. That is what,
I think, one should see. From this may come compassion,
Compassion and a knowledge of nature, although most of the time
I know I am not going to think about it. It would be crazy
To give such things precedence over such affairs of one’s life
As involve more fundamental satisfactions. But is going to the beach
More fundamental than seeing the water boil? Saving of money,
It’s well known, can result from an aesthetic attitude, since a rock
Picked up in the street contains all the shape and hardness of the world.
One sidewalk leads everywhere. You don’t have to be in Estapan.
A serious moment for the island is when its trees
Begin to give it shade, and another is when the ocean washes
Big heavy things against its side. One walks around and looks at the island
But not really at it, at what is on it, and one thinks,
It must be serious, even, to be this island, at all, here,
Since it is lying here exposed to the whole sea. All its
Moments might be serious. It is serious, in such a windy weather, to be a sail
Or an open window, or a feather flying in the street.
Seriousness, how often I have thought of seriousness
And how little I have understood it, except this: serious is urgent
And it has to do with change. You say to the water,
It’s not necessary to boil now, and you turn it off. It stops
Fidgeting. And starts to cool You put your hand in it
And say, The water isn’t serious any more. It has the potential,
However–that urgency to give off bubbles, to
Change itself to steam. And the wind,
When it becomes part of a hurricane, blowing up the beach
And the sand dunes can’t keep it away.
Fainting is one sign of seriousness, crying is another,
Shuddering all over is another one.
A serious moment for the telephone is when it rings,
And a person answers, it is Angelica, or is it you
And finally, at last, who answer, my wing, my past, my
Angel, my flume, and my de-control, my orange and my good-bye kiss,
My extravagance, and my weight at fifteen years old
And at the height of my intelligence, oh Cordillera two
And sandals one, C’est toi a l’appareil? Is that you at
The telephone, and when it snows, a serious moment for the bus is when it snows
For then it has to slow down for sliding, and every moment is a trust.
A serious moment for the fly is when its wings
Are moving, and a serious moment for the duck
Is when it swims, when it first touches water, then spreads
Its smile upon the water, its feet begin to paddle, it is in
And above the water, pushing itself forward, a duck.
And a serious moment for the sky is when, completely blue,
It feels some clouds coming; another when it turns dark.
A serious moment for the match is when it bursts into flame
And is all alone, living, in that instant, that beautiful second for which it was made.
So much went into it! The men at the match factory, the mood of
The public, the sand covering the barn
So it was hard to find the phosphorus, and now this flame,
This pink white ecstatic light blue! For the telephone when it rings,
For the wind when it blows, and for the match when it bursts into flame.
Serious, all our life serious, and we see around us
Seriousness for other things, that touches us and seems as if it might be giving clues.
The seriousness of the house when it is being built
And is almost complete, and then the moment when it is completed.
The seriousness of the bee when it stings. We say, he has taken his life,
merely to sting. Why would he do that? And we feel
We aren’t concentrated enough, not pure, not deep
As the buzzing bee. The bee flies into the house
And lights on a chair arm and sits there, waiting for something to be
Other than it is, so he can fly again. He is boiling, waiting. Soon he is forgotten
And everyone is speaking again.
Seriousness, everyone speaks of seriousness
Certain he knows or seeking to know what it is. A child is bitten by an animal
And that is serious. The doctor has a serious life. He is somewhat, in that, like the bee.
And water! water–how it is needed! and it is always going down
Seeking its own level, evaporating, boiling, now changing into ice
And snow, now making up our bodies. We drink the coffee
And somewhere in this moment is the chance
We will never see each other again. It is serious for the tree
To be moving, the flexibility of its moving
Being the sign of its continuing life. And now there are its blossoms
And the fact that it is blossoming again, it is filling up with
Pink and whitish blossoms, it is full of them, the wind blows, it is
Warm, though, so much is happening, it is spring, the people step out
And the doors swing in, and billions of insects are born. You call me and tell me
You feel that your life is not worth living. I say I will come to see you. I put the key in
And the car begins to clatter, and now it starts.
Serious for me that I met you, and serious for you
That you met me, and that we do not know
If we will ever be close to anyone again. Serious the recognition of the probability
That we will, although time stretches terribly in between. It is serious not to know
And to know and to try to figure things out. One’s legs
Cross, foot swings, and a cigarette is blooming, a gray bouquet, and
The water is boiling. Serious the birth (what a phenomenon!) of anything and
The movements of the trees, and for the lovers
Everything they do and see. Serious intermittently for consciousness
The sign that something may be happening, always, today,
That is enough. For the germ when it enters or leaves a body. For the fly when it lifts its little wings.
~ Kenneth Koch
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