Post by mfwilkie on Nov 14, 2008 3:23:56 GMT -5
It all starts easy enough—
the concept—
the pewter surface of the lake.
You look at the sky, washed-out, weary almost;
you struggle with purpose—
why old pewter; why not silver linings
dropped in the lap of your window?
You question a re-occurring prick, its fitness
for a poem; the sting that always follows
an image of you when you were very three,
halfway to four, and opened tulips lined the
walkways of the park; you, your nose deep
in the color of every one you could get close to.
You can still see the day’s sunlight; still see the back
of your mother’s indifference as she wheels your brother
towards home; you feel her impatience in the old news
she tosses over her shoulder,
Tulips have no smell! Hurry along!.
But this bedazzlement you discovered on your own,
without anyone holding your hand; settled in your mind
with a Show-and-Tell, Nana’s time and Nana's cookies.
And for a few seconds, before you’ve moved to follow,
you stare at your mother’s leading and you know
big feelings: distance and separation.
And then you wonder how to move the contents
of a gray day to paper without starting a war be-
tween your Catholic mind and your Jewish soul—
a subject your mother’s voice once made the Sign
of the Cross over when you thought you could speak
with her about things you’d trucked from childhood
Ideas you had about God from a book of Old Testament
stories nicked from your father’s bottom dresser drawer,
stories shared with a dictionary and an encyclopedia
because no one talked about religion in your house.
You just were.
Words evolve from concepts; we palm them in our minds,
gut them, then sew them back together with pen and ink
and as much truth as we’re willing to share.
It is for poets to pull from melancholy.*
Before the pewter lake, there was Ginsberg’s Kaddish
hinting at direction.
*Guest on the Sea
Translated from the Arabic by Lena Jayyusi and W.S. Merwin
the concept—
the pewter surface of the lake.
You look at the sky, washed-out, weary almost;
you struggle with purpose—
why old pewter; why not silver linings
dropped in the lap of your window?
You question a re-occurring prick, its fitness
for a poem; the sting that always follows
an image of you when you were very three,
halfway to four, and opened tulips lined the
walkways of the park; you, your nose deep
in the color of every one you could get close to.
You can still see the day’s sunlight; still see the back
of your mother’s indifference as she wheels your brother
towards home; you feel her impatience in the old news
she tosses over her shoulder,
Tulips have no smell! Hurry along!.
But this bedazzlement you discovered on your own,
without anyone holding your hand; settled in your mind
with a Show-and-Tell, Nana’s time and Nana's cookies.
And for a few seconds, before you’ve moved to follow,
you stare at your mother’s leading and you know
big feelings: distance and separation.
And then you wonder how to move the contents
of a gray day to paper without starting a war be-
tween your Catholic mind and your Jewish soul—
a subject your mother’s voice once made the Sign
of the Cross over when you thought you could speak
with her about things you’d trucked from childhood
Ideas you had about God from a book of Old Testament
stories nicked from your father’s bottom dresser drawer,
stories shared with a dictionary and an encyclopedia
because no one talked about religion in your house.
You just were.
Words evolve from concepts; we palm them in our minds,
gut them, then sew them back together with pen and ink
and as much truth as we’re willing to share.
It is for poets to pull from melancholy.*
Before the pewter lake, there was Ginsberg’s Kaddish
hinting at direction.
*Guest on the Sea
Translated from the Arabic by Lena Jayyusi and W.S. Merwin
