American Life in Poetry is a free weekly column attending to the work of contemporary American poets. It is published by the Poetry Foundation, which also publishes Poetry magazine.
This week's issue is introduced by Ted Kooser, another fine poet:
"In many of those Japanese paintings with Mt. Fuji in the background, we find tiny figures moving along under the immensity of the landscape. Here’s an American version of a scene like that, by Stanley Plumly of Maryland, one of our country’s most accomplished poets."
Stanley Plumly's "Off a side road near Staunton" gives us an opportunity to understand what we can see if we are willing to linger. We needn't wait for a special occasion. An ordinary day, a "nothing afternoon," will do just fine for us to fill, or a Japanese landscape upon a wall. An ordinary day, and time retreats into itself.
you could walk the rest of the day into the picture
and not know why, at any given moment, you’re there.
Off A Side Road Near Staunton
Some nothing afternoon, no one anywhere,
an early autumn stillness in the air,
the kind of empty day you fill by taking in
the full size of the valley and its layers leading
slowly to the Blue Ridge, the quality of country,
if you stand here long enough, you could stay
for, step into, the way a landscape, even on a wall,
pulls you in, one field at a time, pasture and fall
meadow, high above the harvest, perfect
to the tree line, then spirit clouds and intermittent
sunlit smoky rain riding the tops of the mountains,
though you could walk until it’s dark and not reach those rains—
you could walk the rest of the day into the picture
and not know why, at any given moment, you’re there.
- Stanley Plumly
American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation (www.poetryfoundation.org), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Reprinted from “Old Heart,” by Stanley Plumly. Copyright ©2007 by Stanley Plumly. Used by permission of the publisher, W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. Introduction copyright © 2011 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction’s author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate