The Stories

ISSUE: Summer 1994

Those in the parlors reading the still stories, the slow stories
Look out the window, then read, then look out slowly.
The leaves appear on the trees and fall from the trees,
As the readings in slippers proceed, slowly.

The lamb’s wool in the slippers is warm, warming the readers,
Like the prose and verse in the stories, warm and still,
And the readers’ feet are soft like the wool in the stories,
But the stories are dry, alas, like the space that the feet fill.

So the old eyes look at the pages, the old, dry pages,
And the old mouths mutter that authors are too verbose,
And the old hands holding the pages let loose the pages
As the seasons pass in the slippers, and slowly the eyes close.

Reed Whittemore

An author and editor of numerous books, Reed Whittemore was a professor emeritus of English from the University of Maryland. He has also taught at the University of the South and was chairman of the English department at Carleton College. His many poetry prizes include the Harriet Monroe Prize of Poetry magazine and VQR’s Emily Clark Balch Prize for 1962. He served as a Consultant in Poetry for the Library of Congress (now known as the US Poet Laureate) and as literary editor of The New Republic.