1/24/2018

RIP Ursula Le Guin

she was a hero. a very important person to exist. she inched me away from misanthropy and toward, well, feminism at least. so sad she will never write another word. my favorite author.


from "The Writer on, and at, Her Work"


Long ago when I was Ursula

writing, but not “the writer,”

and not very plural yet,

and worked with the owls not the sparrows,

being young, scribbling at midnight:

I came to a place

where the road turned  and divided,

it seemed like, 

going different ways, 

I was lost. 

I didn’t know which way. 

It looked like one roadsign said To Town 

and the other didn’t say anything. 

So I took the way that didn’t say. 

I followed 

myself. 

“I don’t care,” I said, 

terrified. 

“I don’t care if nobody ever reads it! 

I’m going this way.” 

And I found myself 

in the dark forest, in silence. 

You maybe have to find yourself, 

yourselves, 

in the dark forest. 

Anyhow, I did then. And still now, 

always. At the bad time. 

When you find the hidden catch 

in the secret drawer 

behind the false panel 

inside the concealed compartment 

in the desk in the attic 

of the house in the dark forest, 

and press the spring firmly, 

a door flies open to reveal 

a bundle of old letters, 

and in one of them 

is a map

of the forest 

that you drew yourself

before you ever went there.

         The Writer At Her Work:

I see her walking

on a path through a pathless forest,

or a maze, a labyrinth.

As she walks she spins,

and the fine thread falls behind her

following her way,

telling

where she is going, where she has gone.

Teling the story.

The line, the thread of voice,

the sentences saying the way.

         The Writer On Her Work:

I see her, too, I see her

lying on it.

Lying, in the morning early,

rather uncomfortable.

Trying to convince herself

that it’s a bed of roses,

a bed of laurels,

or an innerspring mattress,

or anyhow a futon.

But she keeps twitching.

There’s a lump, she says.

There’s something

like a rock—like a lentil—

I can’t sleep.

There’s something

the size of a split pea

that I haven’t written.

That I haven’t written right.

 I can’t sleep. 

She gets up 

and writes it. 

Her work 

is never done.