Righting It




Righting It

Whatever emanated from  him he loved back into
                himself
He no longer drifted in the open wind,
but enclosed himself in a narrowing circle
and there, in its grip, he extinguished himself.

                                                                Rainer Maria Rilke
                                                                Narcissus

We have it all
wrong I know
we do we think

the man looking into
himself is
a beautiful beast

and the blush
in his ckeeks, in
the pocket

beside his thigh
high as the grass
keeping him vibrantly

alive, keeping
him ahh, sighing
more like,

is something
we need to be
captious of, we say

he’s topped himself
off with nothing
but himself.

But look, look at
how he draws
the water

to the most
profound clarity
it will ever

have, look
how it wants
to be

inside of him
that wants it
to be inside

of it, not
shoved out
into the dark

for men
to devour
to leave

sour and bloody
in a ditch
kicked in the

shallow dirt.
Wouldn’t you
want this

to be remade
inside of him
and spread out

into every petal
by the pond
he gazed

and gazed
and gazed
and gazed

into, full
of himself, yes
but full of

every self, wouldn’t
you?  Just explode
in his cells

and sink
into the deep
mess

and always
after that know
Know!

you were
loved and still
are?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Of Earth

Image
Of Earth Old mistakes come calling: no life happens just once.  Whatever snags even the edge of your days will abide. You are a turtle with all the years on your back. Your head sinks down into the mud. You must bear it.  You need a thick shell in all that rain.                                                                                                 William Stafford                   ...
Read more

With The Living

Image
Among them New Bedford Whaling Museum With The Living What is fidelity?  To what does it hold?  The point of departure, or the turning road that is departure and absence and the halfway home?  What we are and what we were once are far estranged.                                                 Wendell Berry                                                 The Dance I: a small whale The juvenile female humpback came through to the cove almost unnoticed and maybe it had been ...
Read more

Shag

Image
Shag and these regions now have little to say for themselves except in thousands of light song-sparrow songs floating upwards freely, dispassionately, through the mist, and meshing in brown-wet, fine torn fish-nets.                                                            Elizabeth Bishop                                                            "Cape Breton" The way my father would shape the word in his throat and bring it up gargling you could tell hew didn't like the bird: shag .  And his whole lower jaw would sag and he'd say they all oughta be shot.  They were noting at all to look at, especially dripping on rusted front rail...
Read more