Movement

Why did I take my life in my hands to see a few fish

And some gigantic cakes of ice

And to meet a few South American writers?

I could have imagined all this without coming here

And slightly increased my chances of staying alive.

I used to think it didn’t matter how long I lived

But I didn’t know how it did matter how much I saw

And could write about and how many people I met.

I’ll have to take my life in my hands again now to go back

From life “down here”

I say “down here” because of the way it is on the map.

I have gone mainly east and south because that’s where everything was that I wanted to see.

Finally, when I was almost sixty I went west, to China.

Where were things I wanted to see but I hadn’t known

I could get to with my physical presence

Which is everything, the reason for life.

*

Until his death from leukemia in 2002, at age 77, Kenneth Koch was blessed with the ability to find poetic possibilities in material that was seemingly unworthy or uninspiring. The result was a lyricism that was playful even when the subject was serious. “The Collected Poems of Kenneth Koch” (Alfred A. Knopf: 764 pp., $40) -- from which the above poem is taken -- and “The Collected Fiction of Kenneth Koch” (Coffee House Press: 394 pp., $18 paper) showcase his humor, versatile storytelling and, above all, his candor. “Don’t be conceited,” he warns young writers in “The Art of Poetry.” “Let your compassion guide you / And your excitement. And always bring your endeavors to their end.”