Greetings! Oh man, I think this week has been the busiest yet. I hope to gain more sleep soon. All is very well though. Things are being accomplished and it's hard to believe how fast the semester and year are going. Most days, I wish time would slow down.
I don't think I've ever shared much of Lucie Brock-Broido's work before, but after reading her for the first time last spring she quickly became one my favorite poets. "Evolution" from her 1988 collection A Hunger might be my favorite. It's a blend of history, realization and imagery.
It reminds me of what we share and admire from one another as well as the memories we leave behind through art, music and image.
Evolution
The extinct creatures would have liked this day,
a festival flooded all the way to the river.
If they were still alive with us, they would curl
into the leaves last autumn,
begin their long journey to be coal.
Someday, they would be precious minerals.
They might have been confused,
the cello playing solo,
these chief black strokes --
the Chinese character for rain.
But they would have understood
the love of old leaves heaped,
the dogs barking down
the late afternoons, howling for summertime.
What I want is to sleep away an epoch,
wake up as a girl with another kind of heart.
In the Vatican library, the letters
to Anne Boleyn are pinned down to keep
from coiling. An entire country
changed its faith once for its king.
I want to know what the letters say & go on
saying, what her face looked like in sleep.
By supper the invalids will be lying
down, whorled in white coverlets,
exhausted from yearning,
Everything they do is smaller than these
who walked in a world
that was greater than this one.
I am the medieval child in the basket, rocking.
Feigning sleep, up all night listening for secrets:
why there are punishments,
what news bad weather brings,
how things get winnowed out.
No comments:
Post a Comment