Tuesday, April 13, 2010

these things on the wind




There are mornings when I come here
and I want to post nothing more than a period
.



or maybe a comma
,



would be more fitting

since I'm thinking that it's a pause I'm looking for
,
,
,
,



a dip into nonsense
and nothing more.



a notice that it's okay
to dabble in
poetry





So.
Today I'm doing
just that.
A comma
,


And this, in honor of April's national poetry month:






Wind in a Jar
-for Deborah Whitman

I had been thinking of Bosnians and Serbs,
another stupid slaughter in a world
I could not disavow as mine,
when in your studio you said
This is wind in a jar. I saw the white hint
of turbulence near the bottom
of an irregular rhombus---a jar
because you called it a jar---
and I could look right in at the fixed wind
and the mere air that surrounded it.
I was happy you had caught the wind,
which for centuries had been as reckless
as anyone angry and unattached,
happy you'd given in such a resting place.
I wanted you to make a jar
for certain dark sections of the heart,
and a jar for honesty that hurts,
and a jar open on all sides---a freedom jar---
that would hold only what wished to be held.
But I had to say goodbye, or once again get lost
in the flux and the effluvia of life and art.
Outside in the warm unauthorized night,
a small breeze had come up, a fledgling wind,
something that had gotten away, I was sure,
from somewhere, and would roam
the torturous earth for as long as it could.

-Stephen Dunn

3 comments:

Andrea said...

Where do you find such excellent poetry? His imagery is mind-stretching and brilliant! Thanks for giving this to us today.

Andrea said...

Now I've printed it, because I need to read it over and over again....like "to the depth and breadth and height my soul can reach, when feeling out of sight for the ends of Being and ideal Grace"...(EBB)

kately said...

my friend -- leave it to you to challenge me .... "effluvia" - I HAD to look it up. What a wonderful word ... and then I had to pause, and kind of giggle when I read the definition and then read the poem again ..... look up the word online and tell me if I'm the goofiest girlfriend you know ;-)