Monday Poems: "Around Us" -- by Marvin Bell

We need some pines to assuage the darkness 
when it blankets the mind,

we need a silvery stream that banks as smoothly

as a plane's wing, and a worn bed of 

needles to pad the rumble that fills the mind,

and a blur or two of a wild thing

that sees and is not seen. We need these things

between appointments, after work,

and, if we keep them, then someone someday,

lying down after a walk

and supper, with the fire hole wet down,

the whole night sky set at a particular

time, without numbers or hours, will cause

a little sound of thanks--a zipper or a snap—

to close round the moment and the thought

of whatever good we did.

*     *     *     *     *


Marvin Bell is a poet and teacher. He has taught at Oregon State 
University, the Iowa Writer's Workshop, the University of Hawaii, 
and the University of Washington. He currently teaches in the 
writing program at Pacific University in Oregon. 


He has published nearly 20 books of poetry, 
including Drawn by Stones, by Earth, by Things That Have
Been in the Fire (1984), Vertigo: The Living Dead Man 
Poems (2011), and Rampant (2004), in which 
the above poem appears. He served as the first 
poet laureate of the State of Iowa. His has also been 
awarded Guggenheim and National Endowment of the Arts 
fellowships, a Fulbright Award, and was a finalist 
for the National Book Award. He currently lives in Port 
Townsend, Washington.