Home > Work > Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems, 1968-1998
1 " What We WantWhat we wantis never simple.We move among the thingswe thought we wanted:a face, a room, an open bookand these things bear our names --now they want us.But what we want appearsin dreams, wearing disguises.We fall past,holding out our armsand in the morningour arms ache.We don't remember the dream,but the dream remembers us.It is there all dayas an animal is thereunder the table,as the stars are there. "
― Linda Pastan , Carnival Evening: New and Selected Poems, 1968-1998
2 " Despite the enormous evening sky spreading over most of the canvas, its moon no more than a tarnished coin, dull and flat, in a devalued currency; despite the trees, so dark themselves, stretching upward like supplicants, utterly leafless; despite what could be a face, rinsed of feeling, aimed in their direction, the two small figures at the bottom of this picture glow bravely in their carnival clothes, as if the whole darkening world were dimming its lights for a party. "