Kenneth Koch(1925–2002)
Energy in Sweden
Those were the days
When there was so much energy in and around me
I could take it off and put it back on, like clothes
That one has bought only for a ski trip
But then finds that one is using every day
Because every day is like a ski trip—
I think that's how I was at twenty-three.
Seeing those six young women in a boat I was on a ski trip.
They said, We are all from Minneapolis. This was in Stockholm.
The melding of American and Swedish-American female looks was a
ski trip
Although I had no particular reason at that time to put all my energy
on
Yet there it was, I had it, the way a giant has the hegemony of his
nerves
In case he needs it, or the way a fisherman has all his poles and
lines and lures, and a scholar all his books
The way a water heater has all its gas
Whether it is being used or not, I had all that energy.
Really, are you all from Minneapolis I said, almost bursting with
force.
And yes, one of them, about the second prettiest, replied. We are here
for several days.
I thought about this moment from time to time
For eight or ten years. It seemed to me I should have done something
at the time,
To have used all that energy. Lovemaking is one way to use it and
writing is another.
Both maybe are overestimated, because the relation is so clear.
But that is probably human destiny and I'm not going to go against
it here.
Sometimes there are the persons and not the energy, sometimes the
energy and not the persons.
When the gods give both, a man shouldn't complain.