Fragment 22

Sappho, Fragment 22, from
If Not, Winter (Anne Carson)

“The spirit moves, but not always upward…”
[Theodore Roethke, “Meditations of an Old Woman”]

a.

waking this morning, an arm would not work

sleep & weight had robbed it of its force

it only took minutes to return at the elbow, then the wrist

a look in the mirror showed:

sleep left heavy lines across my face

if not today, what is winter?

temperature falling through the afternoon,

wind nearly silent through thick glass,

no pain afflicts the body

but much is seen, in its waves

because I prayed for clarity

this word: patience

I want to feel you near me

b.

there is only so much one can stand: work

satisfies until it doesn’t.

which face will show this morning:

the one that is impatient? enthusiastic?

exasperated? content? if not winter, when

will the prizes arrive? certainly not spring.

No pain without desire.

Is this because I prayed for accolades?

I should have never heard this word: ποιϝέω.

I want to be silent.

c.

being here with you is never work

(always home)

I never fail to see us both in each face

(the three boys who won’t stay still)

we will stay close, if not, winter,

no pain can preserve us from time

because I prayed that they would grow,

this word: patience &

I want, I want, I want

them to slow down

d.

work stacks & family holds

this face knows all four seasons

(if the spirit moves)

what is premature spring if not winter?

there is no pain if no loss,

all is temporary anyway:

(if the spirit moves)

because I prayed for happiness

this word: expectation

I want & must endure the spin

of gain & loss & loss & gain

(if the spirit moves)

Hugo, Roethke, & Wright

November Poem a Day Challenge: Day 6


"Hardly a ghost left to talk with." Richard Hugo
 "What’s madness but nobility of soul / At odds with circumstance?" Theodore Roethke
 "I have wasted my life." James Wright

The silence is impossible,
always a rush of noise:
a train, leaf-rustle, thump
of heart, or house whisper.
Nothing stops the procession:
so much memory to alleviate
some choose liquid, pen, or pills.


Then there is the giving in:
dancing with the heavy bear,
is it time or is it spirit?
What was it the Greek said
about the river, always?
Never doubt the soaring chicken-
hawk nor the blessed ground.


For me its pictures, a line of
tinted bottles, foreground,
a haze that might be ghost-
flesh dancing just behind.
What is the strange reflection
in the glass? It could not be me,
not without a hand to chin, a tug.


Is it a waste to lay the day,
to look, to wake, to see?
Isn't it madness to doubt
your own devastation, all
the while courting the edge?
What the blood begs is not
silence, is it? Merely fluctuation.


When the three drunk ghosts visit,
never together, they speak, each
in a lonely room. One of cancer
stealing the cells, seven at a time.
Another swears sobriety: I'm dancing.
I've been dancing all this time.
The last one just sings: Kapowsin,


Kapowsin, sunfish, perch, & trout.
They are nothing if not gentlemen
ready for one last night at the fights
that will never come. Of course,
ghosts don't really wear flesh,
nor scuttle their way into pictures,
& best: they have no need of shaking hands.