the
choice came
to
string
words
together
like
jewels,
choosing
how much space
to place
between
the
words and lines
for
emphasis.
It did
not come of its
own
accord – towering
up from
within.
It came
from their words;
listening,
reading, and listening
again to
the cadence beneath
the
lines – in
the
words.
The
words were
theirs’.
Long
elongations and
truncated
cadences marked
the new paths
my
jumbled
mind
met
my
heart
upon.
William
Stafford
Christopher
Bursk
Robert
Bly
Coleman
Barks
Allen
Ginsberg
Gary
Snyder
Robert
Hass
Claribel
Alegria
Jimmy
Santiago Baca
Sharon
McPherson
Carolyn
Forche
Naomi
Shihab Nye
Lucille
Clifton
Sharon
Olds
Gerald
Stern
Stanley
Kunitz
Mary
Oliver
Joyce
Carol Oates
Rita
Dove
Sekou
Sundiata
Adrienne
Rich
Marge
Piercy
Their
words have
carved
out lines around
my soul;
rivulets
of
meaning carry
gold and
diamond
dust
from the
mines of
poetic-quarry
to the
place in me
that
strikes upon their
meaning
with an assayers
hunger
for
the
mother-load.
They
have built pathways
in me
that call forth
the
words.
Passing
through me
with
magnetic accuracy
to that
one place
on the
line of words
that
will give them their
fullest-worth.
They
will only
find
more-worth as
days
grow on days
and my
owning meaning
is
composite with theirs
in the
metamorphic
process
of weathering
heat:
through
pain;
a
weathering through sorrow
with deep
and eternal
sighs.
Those
everlasting poets
have
gone down and in
to the
fabulous mineshafts of
layered
meaning and
shine in
the center of my me;
the
place from which
all
truth rises to the air;
rises to
its place
in the
sun.
No comments:
Post a Comment