Amiri Baraka

As a Possible Lover

As a Possible Lover - meaning Summary

Solitude as Gentle Practice

The poem addresses a possible lover who practices silence and loneliness as if they were disciplines. It traces a slow, cold passage of time and insists that identity and presence lack certainty or finality. The speaker observes the beloved as a fragile, transient "gentle wisp of life," noting a mournful, perhaps self-deceptive impulse to cling to something never truly possessed. The tone combines tenderness with quiet resignation.

Read Complete Analyses

Practices silence, the way of wind bursting in early lull. Cold morning to night, we go so slowly, without thought to ourselves. (Enough to have thought tonight, nothing finishes it. What you are, will have no certainty, or end. That you will stay, where you are, a human gentle wisp of life. Ah…) practices loneliness, as a virtue. A single specious need to keep what you have never really had.

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