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A Secret to Live By

Text of Poem

In the attic of my mind
sits a trunk packed with the
clothes of old ideas, also 
age-yellowed snapshots of friends,
relatives, sweethearts taken in
fair and cloudy weather. The baggage
memory keeps, a broken birdcage
of a canary whose neck I wrung
in some childish rage, the usual litter,
dust, mouse droppings, a dead bat,
a basket of broken toys. But hid
under the eaves, hidden away,
lies a sealed envelope that holds
a secret I wrote to bolster my faith
in the traffic and market we live in.
Once I had a revelation of an
instinct for order in things great and small
that rang a bell for meaning I still try
to hear above the jostle of the street.

First Line
In the attic of my mind
Original Pub Location
Original Publication Date
1979
Original Citation
Snake in the Strawberries (1979) 10.
Complete Poems
388
Hearst Collections
Word Count
122
Poetic Form
open
Themes
Twitter Quote
Once I had a revelation of an / instinct for order in things great and small