{"id":16613,"date":"2011-07-06T08:00:52","date_gmt":"2011-07-06T12:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=16613"},"modified":"2011-07-07T13:27:31","modified_gmt":"2011-07-07T17:27:31","slug":"poem-tender-range","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2011\/07\/06\/poem-tender-range\/","title":{"rendered":"Poem: Tender Range"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Today\u2019s poem, John Rybicki\u2019s \u201cTender Range,\u201d is an incantation that seems particularly fitting for a crisp fall day. It\u2019s a series of lyrical fragments arranged as a kind of stay against loss and death. We liked this poem for the way it subtly but persuasively finds a fresh language for the sense of imperilment that lurks around us, as in the eerie lines \u201cI don\u2019t know anything \/ about blowing a child out\/ like a balloon, or what comes after\u2014 .\u201d<\/em> \u2014Meghan O\u2019Rourke<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>TENDER RANGE<\/p>\n<p>Come the white morning<br \/> I\u2019ll cross the earth on my face,<\/p>\n<p>let the barrel of light tip over<br \/> one more time<\/p>\n<p>and let\u2019s just call it sunrise.<br \/> I don&#8217;t know anything<\/p>\n<p>about blowing a child out<br \/> like a balloon, or what comes after\u2014<\/p>\n<p>that dream like a waterfall sealed in a flask<br \/> close to God\u2019s hip.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s night now with those squares<br \/> of light all over the world,<\/p>\n<p>there where a woman has been<br \/> spreading her own light onto the windows<\/p>\n<p>of her house just like I have<br \/> rubbed oil onto your belly.<\/p>\n<p>Mothers daub their fire to the glass<br \/> so even a scarecrow like me<\/p>\n<p>out wandering the night<br \/> can take his chin out from inside his coat,<\/p>\n<p>there where his own lantern is hissing.<br \/> To gaze through the glass and stop<\/p>\n<p>the crunch of footfalls over the bones<br \/> of things I cannot fix.<\/p>\n<p>Do you know how many hobos like me<br \/> are out there where the wind howls?<\/p>\n<p>We gaze up from where her<br \/> fire pours over the snow:<\/p>\n<p>because we know she is in there<br \/> doing her soft work.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today\u2019s poem, John Rybicki\u2019s \u201cTender Range,\u201d is an incantation that seems particularly fitting for a crisp fall day. It\u2019s a series of lyrical fragments arranged as a kind of stay against loss and death. We liked this poem for the way it subtly but persuasively finds a fresh language for the sense of imperilment that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":191,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[498],"tags":[2495,279,165],"class_list":["post-16613","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poetry-2","tag-john-rybicki","tag-meghan-orourke","tag-poetry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.4 (Yoast SEO v25.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Poem: Tender Range by John Rybicki<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"July 6, 2011 \u2013 Today\u2019s poem, John Rybicki\u2019s \u201cTender Range,\u201d is an incantation that seems particularly fitting for a crisp fall day. 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