Saturday, October 20, 2012
moving in october
Last waking in the old house, the boy watches
from an upstairs window, nodding
at the sky‘s surrender to dust from the harvest.
The restless world searches for an ending.
Congregations of blackbirds over stubble,
like mothers and fathers gleaning children
from the broken ground. Wind maims
the soft yellow trees, tearing the frail edges
of leaves, trying to sew the name of God.
He whispers his own name as if pulling a thread.
His breath fogs pale and cool on the glass,
warm on the back of his hand. It is day.
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Oh you hush me. Quite happily.
ReplyDeleteIt is perfect, this collection of words, ciphers.
The restless world searches for an ending.
. . . sew the name of God.
Every other bit of it. Why did I choose any? I said I wouldn't.
Elegant rhythm and stately feel. I especially like "Congregations of blackbirds over stubble,
ReplyDeletelike mothers and fathers gleaning children / from the broken ground." I'm reminded at the window of the end of Fiona Apple's line "I only see what I'm looking through."
William: it is a continual re-focusing of attention, isn't it? do we see (hear, feel, think about) the object of our attention, or the medium that allows us to connect with the object? and how can we know, since we have only our own perceptions to go by? we can never know the trees, a stone, a face without mediation of some sort ...
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I don't know why I failed to read and comprehend the title in my last readings, but I did (and have done too many times before). It is even more poignant given your circumstances, now that I make the connection.
ReplyDeleteRuth: thank you for the recognition of this connection :-) it is, of course, outside the poem, but deep inside me, in my own being in the world ... but, then, perhaps, this inside / outside distinction is meaningless??
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Oh I love the ending, a quiet but powerful proclamation.
ReplyDeleteMarion: thank you :-) i liked the ending, too, when it finally came ... you know, i find it impossible to think through these things, anymore -- to decide what i want to say, and find a way to say it ... if the poem isn't finished, i have to stop and wait until the next line writes itself ... everything was there, except for the last half-line, and i had to wait, for days, a week ... i don't know if the poem is a good poem, whatever that might be, but this is how it becomes what it becomes :-)
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i feel there are two directions pulling this poem. the first is the boy himself, the house, the window, the fields, the body, the earth, the incarnation, even his warm breath on his hand. "He whispers his own name as if pulling a thread." he wills himself more solid but even he does not believe it as his voice is only a whisper. and then there is the line i wanted to reject representing the other direction, the dissolution, the ending, the desired death, "The restless world searches for an ending." in between these two states there is only dust, the movement of blackbirds and stubble, wind, fog and glass, the two states so tenuously bound only by the poetically suggested thread of god.
ReplyDeletebut
BUT
you give us release with the last short sentence. you allow us our being, albeit only briefly, "it is day." i say these words aloud to myself knowing there is never more.
(james, i read this poem over and over and discover in my reading it, in my experiencing it, how goddamned good it is. i laugh, i sat here trying to find a better way to express it but am too excited by it. the poem, the language and the message gleam.)
xo
erin
erin: this time of year, i long for dissolution -- not exactly for death (except maybe if we have misunderstood death?), but to break apart on the wind and go like the mist ... but this is also and always and already a longing for fullness, for completion, for unity ... are we at last beginning to have some clue as to why and how these are the same???
Delete(love, do you see that this is me in our house? i think you must -- it is only that when i was there without you two weeks ago, i was about eight years old ...)
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I read this, James, and I immediately got a picture of you and Erin in your home. You are both so truly & utterly blessed. xo
ReplyDeleteMarion: yes:-) i feel this blessing very acutely, astonishment, gratitude, a grace that i didn't even know how to ask for, and yet all days are changed now with this light :-))
ReplyDeletethank you
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