Something on the end of a fishingline,
hanging on, or gone, isn’t the same
as something slipping through fingers,
falling gracefully into the water beneath
your feet breathing in the rain.
You know when I talk about birds
that I am at my most faithful:
just today the absence of a
blue heron nearly killed me.
The ancients read from left to right
auspiciously, and right to left with
apprehension: birdbrain
roadkill, birdsign, emptiness.
When memories of gone loves
gather in dreamscape,
do they remember one another?
Do they all wake up disappointed?
What is God but authorfunction?
Hopescape, prayerfield, amen.
If I scan all your old haunts are you
more likely to show up in my dreams?
Do ghosts still believe in forever?
in punctuality? in omniscience?
apologies?
Which big fish story started all this lying?
When I pull up the line I always expect you to smile.
I will never stop being five years old.
Polaroids never lie.
You’re still not here
____________
Forgive me. I've been reading Li-Young Lee again.
The first two stanzas are particularly striking...vivid images & a sort of gut-wrenching honesty.
ReplyDeleteThe poem conjures up something haunting/haunted in every stanza--what lies outside the perpheral vision that may or may not be there.
The 'what is god' stanza seems odd or out of place to me...but if it's a reference to something in Lee's work, that would explain it, because I haven't read him.
I continue to be impressed by the layers in your work here...the way you successful unite image & emotion...a balance that few manage to find.
Thank you, Melissa, once again you are too kind. The "What is God" line is not a reference to anything. It seemed to me that God was one of those presences that needed to get in the poem and the only way the poem could deal with the idea of God was through the idea of storytelling. I think it is out of place too, but I tried to cut it and couldn't. Mostly the whole poem was written in my head while I was putting Liam to bed. That line wouldn't give up. Thanks for the kindnesses!
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