Listen to the world’s best poetry read out loud.
Usually I don't write from inspiration, I just sit down and write. But in this case I was lying in bed and I suddenly have this vision that everybody in the world was carrying a ladder. And it was a very moving thought to me, and it became this poem.
Carrying a Ladder
We are always
really carrying
a ladder, but it’s
invisible. We
only know
something’s
the matter:
something precious
crashes; easy doors
prove impassable.
Or, in the body,
there’s too much swing or off –
center gravity.
And, in the mind,
a drunken capacity,
access to out-of-range
apples. As though
one had a way to climb
out of the damage
and apology.
from The Niagara River (Grove Press, 2005), © Kay Ryan 2005, used by permission of the author and Grove/Atlantic, Inc. Poetry Foundation recording made on 11 Sept 2007, San Francisco, California