1.15.15

This is the time of year for writing articles about making resolutions. Whatever you feel about them, it is clear that this is the allotted time for humans to look at themselves critically with an eye for reform. Wouldn't it be lovely if we allowed ourselves this luxury anytime it was needed? Making and remaking is a constant process, and confining it to so very early in the year can condemn our remaking to be forgotten.

Here are some poems about the being, what is within it, and what it is within.



Samurai Song by Robert Pinsky


When I had no roof I made 
Audacity my roof. When I had 
No supper my eyes dined. 

When I had no eyes I listened. 
When I had no ears I thought. 
When I had no thought I waited. 

When I had no father I made 
Care my father. When I had 
No mother I embraced order. 

When I had no friend I made 
Quiet my friend. When I had no 
Enemy I opposed my body. 

When I had no temple I made 
My voice my temple. I have 
No priest, my tongue is my choir. 

When I have no means fortune 
Is my means. When I have 
Nothing, death will be my fortune. 

Need is my tactic, detachment 
Is my strategy. When I had 
No lover I courted my sleep. 




Blue Moles by Sylvia Plath


They're out of the dark's ragbag, these two
Moles dead in the pebbled rut,
Shapeless as flung gloves, a few feet apart-
Blue suede a dog or fox has chewed.
One, by himself, seemed pitiable enough,
Little victim unearthed by some large creature
From his orbit under the elm root.
The second carcass makes a duel of the affair:
Blind twins bitten by bad nature.

The sky's far dome is sane and clear.
Leaves, undoing their yellow caves
Between the road and the lake water,
Bare no sinister spaces. Already
The moles look neutral as the stones.
Their corkscrew noses, their white hands
Uplifted, stiffen in a family pose.
Difficult to imagine how fury struck-
Dissolved now, smoke of an old war.

2.

Nightly the battle shouts start up
In the ear of the veteran, and again
I enter the soft pelt of the mole.
Light's death to them: they shrivel in it.
They move through their mute rooms while I sleep,
Palming the earth aside, grubbers
After the fat children of root and rock.
By day, only the topsoil heaves,
Down there one is alone.

Outsize hands prepare a path,
They go before: opening the veins,
Delving for the appendages
Of beetles, sweetbreads, shards - to be eaten
Over and over. And still the heaven
Of final surfeit is just as far
From the door as ever. What happens between us
Happens in darkness, vanishes
Easy and often as each breath


I really like to imagine the view/perspective from the objects of these two poems, and how the objects can be worn by the speaker. A literary virtual reality, if you will. I imagine the other vessels we use to move ourselves around, and how each one changes what we see and what we make of ourselves.