que c’est

Qu’est-ce que c’est ?

It is like wanting to be able to dance
in a place where my feet are steeped
in tar pits, and I am the soon-to-be exhibit,
wailing with my tusks turned to sky.

Je veux me réveiller et je veux croire
qu’il est peut-être possible de rester là,
pendant un petit moment avant d’être
choqué en retour d’accepter la violence
quotidienne.

I want to dream believing it is still possible
to stay there for a moment before
being shocked back into routine
acceptance of the routine violence
of a given day.

I sit here, bleeding, wanting to insist
let us not for now pretend to be saving
each other when simple company
is enough. If it isn’t, then what do I do
with this knowing? That you will never
hear.

The idea of rescue for anyone here is far
past the depths, and here is my confession.

I do not know what those depths are called.
I do not know this space. I cannot name this time.
And yet, time keeps insisting. On seeming to know
me. What a thing, imaginer.

But I suspect.
That something about being makes this happen.
Peut-être.
That I spend what life I have in service of what
I will never be able to offer in kind.

Où es-tu ? Je ne peux pas en voir.

Enough,
éventuellement.

When hope gives out, I only want
to dream.

A Soft Touch for Depths

For the seeker in the dark.

You weren’t always sure you were writing poetry, only that your words could mean something to the truck driver, the soldier, and the one closing the bar. You had harsh words for critics too quick in judgement to listen to what they were not expecting to hear. With both feet in soil, you celebrated the ancient of ancients, and were not too proud to honor what eluded your knowing.

Prone to embrace strangers far and wide with a gaze bent on honoring how the best of the wonders each carried was in tune with an old and ancient song, you could not stop yourself from humming as it moved through your working bones––that which stains dark and touches soft, with a flair of great loneliness, those also softly treading, searching in the dark.

***

Over coffee, I noticed that on this day in 1967, the American poet Carl Sandburg died (born 1878), and I decided to spend some time reading a journal article Sandburg published in February 1916 edition of Poetry Magazine, praising the (often misunderstood and maligned, at the time) work of Ezra Pound. I find that a person tends to reveal a great deal by the bend and texture of their admiration. I borrow some of Sandburg’s phrases (italicized) above, praising Pound, and blend these with ideas commonly attributed to Sandburg’s work.

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