In January, 2019

James Schuyler, In January

"In January"                                            After Ibn Sahl



The yard has sopped into its green-grizzled self its new year
whiteness.

A dog stirs the noon-blue dark with a running shadow and dirt
smells cold and doggy

As though the one thing never seen were its frozen coupling
with the air that brings the flowers of grasses.

And a leafless beech stands wrinkled, gray and sexless–all bone
and loosened sinew–in silver glory

And the sun falls all on one side of it in a running glance, a
licking gaze, an eye-kiss

And ancient silver struck by gold emerges mossy, pinkly
lichened where the sun fondles it

And starlings of anthracite march into the east with rapid jerky
steps pecking at their shadows."
— James Schuyler, “In January”


James Schuyler, 1970 or '69


He wrote poems for friends, to mark a day or morning, to say he was still alive. He wrote for himself, for Joe Brainard, for Frank O'Hara, for Joe and Jane Hazan, for a whole circle, school, the New York School. God bless James Schuyler.

a pugnacious James

The poems of Schuyler catch time as movement, as
fluid, graceful, beautiful —

and quick.

They don’t suggest much agency I guess.
I am not going to judge him.
--Poems by Ken Bolton


What if we all decided in 2016 to catch time in our words, a line or two each day. Just to say Hi!