#kayryan — Public Fediverse posts

In the wake of
horrible events
each act or word
is fortified with
added significance,
unabsorbable as
nutrients added
to the outside
of food: it can’t
do any good.
As if significance
weren’t burdensome
enough. Now
the wave-slapped
beach rocks not
just made to talk
but made to teach.

-- Kay Ryan, "Added Significance"

From *The Best of It: New and Selected Poems*.

#Poetry #KayRyan #TodaysPoem

In the wake of
horrible events
each act or word
is fortified with
added significance,
unabsorbable as
nutrients added
to the outside
of food: it can’t
do any good.
As if significance
weren’t burdensome
enough. Now
the wave-slapped
beach rocks not
just made to talk
but made to teach.

-- Kay Ryan, "Added Significance"

From *The Best of It: New and Selected Poems*.

#Poetry #KayRyan #TodaysPoem

Vacation (by Kay Ryan)

It would be pleasant to walk
in Stonehenge or other places
that have rocks arranged on the
basis of a plan, or plans,
inscrutable to modern man;
to wander among grinders
sunk deep in sheep pastures
or simply set on top Peruvian grit;
to gaze up at incisors
no conceivable jaw could fit;
to stretch to be ignorant enough,
scoured to a clean vessel
as pure as the puzzle, vestal
to a mystery involving people,
but without the heat of people.

---
Another morning, another round of forced updates on my work computer. Grumble grumble.

Enough grumbling, so here's a poem by Kay Ryan that I've been thinking about lately.

#Poetry #TodaysPoem #KayRyan

Vacation (by Kay Ryan)

It would be pleasant to walk
in Stonehenge or other places
that have rocks arranged on the
basis of a plan, or plans,
inscrutable to modern man;
to wander among grinders
sunk deep in sheep pastures
or simply set on top Peruvian grit;
to gaze up at incisors
no conceivable jaw could fit;
to stretch to be ignorant enough,
scoured to a clean vessel
as pure as the puzzle, vestal
to a mystery involving people,
but without the heat of people.

---
Another morning, another round of forced updates on my work computer. Grumble grumble.

Enough grumbling, so here's a poem by Kay Ryan that I've been thinking about lately.

#Poetry #TodaysPoem #KayRyan

Why isn't it all
more marked,
why isn't every wall
graffitied, every park tree
stripped like the
stark limbs
in the house of
the chimpanzees?
Why is there bark
left? Why do people
cling to their
shortening shrifts
like rafts? So
silent.
Not why people *are*;
why not *more* violent?
We must be
so absorbent.
We must be
almost crystals,
almost all some
neutralizing chemical
that really does
clarify and bring peace,
take black sorrow
and make surcease.

---
Kay Ryan, "Why Isn't It All More Marked"

Originally in her collection *Elephant Rocks* but also available in *The Best of It: New and Selected Poems* (2010)

#Poetry #TodaysPoem #KayRyan

Why isn't it all
more marked,
why isn't every wall
graffitied, every park tree
stripped like the
stark limbs
in the house of
the chimpanzees?
Why is there bark
left? Why do people
cling to their
shortening shrifts
like rafts? So
silent.
Not why people *are*;
why not *more* violent?
We must be
so absorbent.
We must be
almost crystals,
almost all some
neutralizing chemical
that really does
clarify and bring peace,
take black sorrow
and make surcease.

---
Kay Ryan, "Why Isn't It All More Marked"

Originally in her collection *Elephant Rocks* but also available in *The Best of It: New and Selected Poems* (2010)

#Poetry #TodaysPoem #KayRyan

Slow and Steady, This Poem Will Win Your Heart

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/12/books/kay-ryan-turtle-poem.html

#HackerNews #SlowAndSteady #Poem #WinYourHeart #KayRyan #PoetryLovers #TurtlePoem

Slow and Steady, This Poem Will Win Your Heart

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/06/12/books/kay-ryan-turtle-poem.html

#HackerNews #SlowAndSteady #Poem #WinYourHeart #KayRyan #PoetryLovers #TurtlePoem

Also, been reading a lot of #KayRyan over the last few weeks, who is fairly new to me. And oh, her cadence! It is both simple and sophisticated, but always very natural, very flowing. It begs you to read it aloud.

Double-trouble because her insights are crazy astute. "Flamingo Watching" is hilarious *and* profound (the best type of profundity?).

Also, been reading a lot of #KayRyan over the last few weeks, who is fairly new to me. And oh, her cadence! It is both simple and sophisticated, but always very natural, very flowing. It begs you to read it aloud.

Double-trouble because her insights are crazy astute. "Flamingo Watching" is hilarious *and* profound (the best type of profundity?).

WINTER FEAR
(by Kay Ryan)

Is it just winter
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can’t fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won’t shift the view,
when clouds won’t lift
though all the skies
go blue.

#TodaysPoem #KayRyan #WinterBlues

Great coincidental read in the midst of an especially peculiar winter, which has brought the deep winter humdrums despite the season being (generally) fairly mild where I am.

WINTER FEAR
(by Kay Ryan)

Is it just winter
or is this worse.
Is this the year
when outer damp
obscures a deeper curse
that spring can’t fix,
when gears that
turn the earth
won’t shift the view,
when clouds won’t lift
though all the skies
go blue.

#TodaysPoem #KayRyan #WinterBlues

Great coincidental read in the midst of an especially peculiar winter, which has brought the deep winter humdrums despite the season being (generally) fairly mild where I am.

Patience
by Kay Ryan

Patience is
wider than one
once envisioned,
with ribbons
of rivers
and distant
ranges and
tasks undertaken
and finished
with modest
relish by
natives in their
native dress.
Who would
have guessed
it possible
that waiting
is sustainable—
a place with
its own harvests.
Or that in
time's fullness
the diamonds
of patience
couldn't be
distinguished
from the genuine
in brilliance
or hardness.

#poetry #kayryan