{"id":65370,"date":"2014-01-22T19:28:04","date_gmt":"2014-01-23T00:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/?p=65370"},"modified":"2014-01-22T18:57:39","modified_gmt":"2014-01-22T23:57:39","slug":"the-leaves-leavetaking","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/","title":{"rendered":"The Leaves\u2019 Leavetaking"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_65374\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-65374\" class=\"size-full wp-image-65374 \" alt=\"balcony with birds horia varlan\" src=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan.jpg\" width=\"640\" height=\"427\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan.jpg 640w, https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan-300x200.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (min-width: 62.5em) 67vw, 100vw\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-65374\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo: Horia Varlan, via Flickr<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Howard Moss, the late poet, was born today in 1922. Moss\u2019s\u00a0<em>Selected Poems<\/em> won the National Book Award in 1972; he served as <em>The New Yorker<\/em>\u2019s poetry editor for nearly forty years, from 1948 until his death in 1987. <em>The Paris Review<\/em> published his poem \u201cA Balcony with Birds\u201d in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/back-issues\/4\" target=\"_blank\">our fourth issue<\/a>, circa the winter of 1953; an excerpt follows.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>The light that hangs in the ailanthus weaves<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The leaves\u2019 leavetaking overtaking leaves.<br \/>The actual is real and not imagined,\u2014still,<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The eye, so learned in disenchantment, sees<br \/>Two trees at once, this one of summer\u2019s will,<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And winter\u2019s one, when no bird will assail<br \/>The skyline\u2019s hyaline transparencies,<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Emptying its architecture by degrees.<\/p>\n<p>Roundly in its fury, soon, the sun<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Feverish with light, goes down, and on<br \/>Come ambitious stars\u2014the stars that were<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0But this morning dimmed. Somewhere a slow<br \/>Piano scales the summits of the air<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0And disappears, and dark descends, and though<br \/>The birds turn off their songs now light is gone,<br \/>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The mind drowned in the dark may dream them on.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Howard Moss, the late poet, was born today in 1922. Moss\u2019s\u00a0Selected Poems won the National Book Award in 1972; he served as The New Yorker\u2019s poetry editor for nearly forty years, from 1948 until his death in 1987. The Paris Review published his poem \u201cA Balcony with Birds\u201d in our fourth issue, circa the winter [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2157],"tags":[12638,12637,3539,165,40],"class_list":["post-65370","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-on-poetry","tag-balcony-with-birds","tag-howard-moss","tag-poem","tag-poetry","tag-the-new-yorker"],"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>A Poem by Howard Moss, Born Today in 1922<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"January 22, 2014 \u2013 Howard Moss, the late poet, was born today in 1922. Moss\u2019s\u00a0Selected Poems won the National Book Award in 1972; he served as The New Yorker\u2019s poetry editor\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Leaves\u2019 Leavetaking by Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"January 22, 2014 \u2013 Howard Moss, the late poet, was born today in 1922. Moss\u2019s\u00a0Selected Poems won the National Book Award in 1972; he served as The New Yorker\u2019s poetry editor\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Paris Review\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/parisreview\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-01-23T00:28:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"427\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@parisreview\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Dan Piepenbring\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Dan Piepenbring\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/6b16ca558fc538230f135c3220dfd3c8\"},\"headline\":\"The Leaves\u2019 Leavetaking\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-23T00:28:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/\"},\"wordCount\":188,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Balcony with Birds\",\"Howard Moss\",\"poem\",\"poetry\",\"The New Yorker\"],\"articleSection\":[\"On Poetry\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/\",\"name\":\"A Poem by Howard Moss, Born Today in 1922\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/2014\/01\/22\/the-leaves-leavetaking\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.theparisreview.org\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/01\/balcony-with-birds-horia-varlan.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2014-01-23T00:28:04+00:00\",\"description\":\"January 22, 2014 \u2013 Howard Moss, the late poet, was born today in 1922. 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