Outfielder; The Room

Stephen Dunn (b. 1939)

So this is excellence: movement
toward the barely possible—
the puma's dream
of running down a hummingbird
on a grassy plain.




The Room
Stephen Dunn (2007)

The room has no choice
Everything that's spoken in it
it absorbs. And it must put up with

the bad flirt, the overly perfumed,
the many murderers of mood—
with whoever chooses to walk in.

If there's a crowd, one person
is certain to be concealing a sadness,
another will have abandoned a dream,

at least one will be a special agent
for his own cause. And always
there's a functionary,

somberly listing what he does.
The room plays no favorites.
Like its windows, it does nothing

but accomodate shades
of light and dark. After everyone leaves
(its entrance, of course, is an exit),

the room will need to be imagined
by someone, perhaps some me
walking away now, who comes alive

when most removed. He'll know
from experience how deceptive
silence can be. This is when the walls

start to breathe as if reclaiming the air,
when the withheld spills forth,
when even the chairs start to talk.

2008: I Saw A Man Pursuing the Horizon by Stephen Crane