While We've Still Got Feet
4.5/5
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About this ebook
David Budbill
David Budbill (1940–2016) is the author of eight books of poems, seven plays, two novels, a collection of short stories, two picture books for children, and the libretto for an opera. He also served as an occasional commentator on National Public Radio’s All Things Considered. He is well known for his play Judevine, which is centered on the lives of people who live in a fictional Vermont town—a place of great beauty and sometimes tough living. His honors include an Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from New England College, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Poetry, and a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship. David lived a humble, engaged, and passionate life in the green mountains of Vermont with his wife of 50 years, the painter Lois Eby.
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Reviews for While We've Still Got Feet
2 ratings2 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5Very plain spoken stuff, satisfying in the manner of spending an afternoon with an old friend who is , at turns, clever, melancholy, self-depracating, and keeps hitting the nail on the head.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5Brilliant. This is a collection of superb poems written in the style of Han Shan (Cold Mountain), Ryokan, and the Mountains and Rivers greats of Chinese classic mountain / Zen poets, this really is treasure. I'm eagerly now reading David Budbill's other 'mountain hermit' books. Equally recommended!
Book preview
While We've Still Got Feet - David Budbill
Part One
Gama Sennin
Gut hangin’ out.
Stick on shoulder.
Toad up on me
head.
Singin’ me songs
on Red Dust Road,
headed toward
dead.
Thirty-five Years
Thirty-five years ago I came into this place to live
a simple life, to try to find out who I am.
Thirty-five years in these remote and lonesome hills.
Just mountains, trees, and sky, a poor farm here and there.
Thirty-five years of watching seasons come and go.
Thirty-five years gone by. Thirty-five years closer to oblivion.
Drink a Cup of Loneliness
Looking for a place to hide?
Judevine Mountain will keep
you safe. Here’s the place to
lose yourself and forget about
the world. Just wind through
pines and the sound of rain.
The longer you stay, the more
withdrawn you get, the better
you’ll like it here. Drink a cup
of loneliness, and see what I
mean. There’s a gray-haired
guy up there who spends his
days playing flutes and writing
poems. He can tell you more.
Thirty-five Miles to a Traffic Light
From here it’s five miles to the blacktop,
thirty-five in any direction of the compass
to a traffic light. People say it’s way out there.
I say, yes sirree. Far out, man, say I. Far out
is what it is. Just snow and cold and isolation
and nobody to see for days and days. People get
scared by so much emptiness. So much silence
is frightening. Better not come here if you
don’t want to fall in upon yourself. Better yet,
better not come here at all.
In the Tradition
For thousands of years, this urge to go away
into the quiet, to sit down and listen for that
still small voice whispering from within.
In the fourth century C.E. T’ao Yüan-ming said,
I built my hut among mankind but hear
no sound of cart or horse.
Four hundred years later Han Shan,
for the same reason, said, The Cold Mountain road
is strange, no tracks of cart or horse.
Seven hundred years after that, Han Shan Te-ch’ing
again built a tiny hut perfectly secluded beyond the sound
of cart or horse or sign of human tracks.
Another five hundred years later and here I am
on Judevine Mountain, still hoping to hear
that still small voice and saying,
Down in the valley big trucks shift down and whine
through the village. But up here on the mountain