Off the Map
Except for faces and hands, there is no surface
that defines our mutual convergence.
“Your blue is clear / as on the first day.
In your presence I am a man …”
She stared at the sky, asking herself, “How much poetry
will a man use, like a dog, sniffing at crust?”
I replied, “For the answer to become clear,
we simply need to ask.”
“But your grandfather and grandmother gradually
forgot. Your relatives all forgot.”
She thought breeding education should accompany
the general education: “Oh, I’m an average breeder.”
“The ram leaped / and the seal
disported on small rocks …”
She shrieked. The water was thigh deep
and freezing. Our bodies were finally cooling.
After a day and a night, we left / the island
and walked back to the village.
We were out of food, but food had become
like distance and time.
this part
“Your blue is clear / as on the first day.
In your presence I am a man …”
is my favorite part of the piece.
thanks
Thanks Frost. I'm sure the poet who was being quoted in that line - Carl Rakosi, from his book Amulet - would be delighted. There are two quotations from that book in this poem, the other one formated in a similar fashion. But the only things (beside context) that distinguish these lines as quotes are the "/" and the quotation marks - which also mix into other lines. A confusion of poetry. Anyway, Rakosi is a good poet to check out, particularly his "Ex Cranium Nights" - one of my favoriten collections. The first couplet in this poem is my own approach to the kind of problematics that he centered his poetry on, i.e. the conceptual/emotional space between objective, external reality and the subjective experience of desire.
I love this stanza
She stared at the sky, asking herself, “How much poetry
will a man use, like a dog, sniffing at crust?”
Thank you for sharing.