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February 01, 2006

where are we in this poem?

Miriam Stewart

a quizzical sadness
that can ask the question of the sun
what is behind that last house?
where does this street
that I have driven down
my whole life
where does it lead?

and like the sun
you might diagnose the day by its response

a given hour to sit here or there
a piece of fantasy in which Eden
harbors two clauses of a definition
in which meaning hovers like a water bug
without breaking the current

I might posit the following:
armageddon. there might only be one piece of bread
left. or in the summer, when the days are hot
but only getting shorter, there might be
an uninhabited porch swing.
when you put pen to paper to write your name
you may instead be compelled
to draw a picture of a clock with no hands.

where, again, is this going?
across the street from the market
I saw a bird, dead on the sidewalk,
its feet curled stiffly around the lost branch

I think I am trying to tell you
why I can only point
away from what I love

I think I’m trying to say that I would send the authorities to your house
and sneak out the back door
hugging the stolen child to my chest

or just to tell you, by way of escape,
that the man on the corner who has no home
is holding his pants up with his thumbs
and singing “Holy, holy, holy” and “Mary, don’t you weep”

Posted by Rock Heals at February 1, 2006 12:00 AM