Post by MoonyLuna on Mar 4, 2009 11:50:54 GMT -5
corydon & alexis
shepherdboy? not the most salient image for contemporary readers
nor most available. unless you're thinking BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN:
a reference already escaping. I did love a montana man, though no good shepherd
rather: a caveman, came spelunking into that grotto I'd retreated to
what light he bore illumined such small space—physically, temporally
and did he have a grove of beech trees? no, no grove
but together we found an old-growth stand of redwood
we gouged each other's chests instead of wood: pledges that faded
he was not cruel nor I unwitting. but what endures beyond any thicket?
example: he took me to the ocean to say farewell. I mean me: farewell to ocean
the ocean, for that matter, to me. us both fatigued, showing signs of wreckage
and that man I had loved stood back from the edge of things
he did not hold me
I expected not to be held
we all understood one another: shepherd understudy, ocean, me
and did he go back to his fields and caves? yes, but they were gone
strip-mining, lumber, defoliant, sterile streams: you knew that was coming
weren't we taught some starched sermon: the pasture awaits us elsewhere
back up a moment: the forest you mentioned—remember, instead of a grove?
untouched for the most part. some human damage, but not ours
we left no mark, not there in the midst of those great trees:
not in the concentric rings that might have held us far past living
instead, I put that man, like so many others, on paper—
a tree already gone from sight where once it had drawn the eyes
upward: the crest of a mountain. crumpled thoughts, crumpled love
shepherdboy, do you see the wild fennel bulbs I gathered for you
olallieberries, new-mown grass, the tender fruits of the coastal fig?
I put them on paper, too, so fragile. for nothing is ever going to last
corydon & alexis, redux
and yet we think that song outlasts us all: wrecked devotion
the wept face of desire, a kind of savage caring that reseeds itself and grows in clusters
oh, you who are young, consider how quickly the body deranges itself
how time, the cruel banker, forecloses us to snowdrifts white as god's own ribs
what else but to linger in the slight shade of those sapling branches
yearning for that vernal beau. for don't birds covet the seeds of the honey locust
and doesn't the ewe have a nose for wet filaree and slender oats foraged in the meadow
kit foxes crave the blacktailed hare: how this longing grabs me by the nape
guess I figured to be done with desire, if I could write it out
dispense with any evidence, the way one burns a pile of twigs and brush
what was his name? I'd ask myself, that guy with the sideburns and charming smile
the one I hoped that, as from a sip of hemlock, I'd expire with him on my tongue
silly poet, silly man: thought I could master nature like a misguided preacher
as if banishing love is a fix. as if the stars go out when we shut our sleepy eyes
Copyright
D. A. Powell
shepherdboy? not the most salient image for contemporary readers
nor most available. unless you're thinking BROKEBACK MOUNTAIN:
a reference already escaping. I did love a montana man, though no good shepherd
rather: a caveman, came spelunking into that grotto I'd retreated to
what light he bore illumined such small space—physically, temporally
and did he have a grove of beech trees? no, no grove
but together we found an old-growth stand of redwood
we gouged each other's chests instead of wood: pledges that faded
he was not cruel nor I unwitting. but what endures beyond any thicket?
example: he took me to the ocean to say farewell. I mean me: farewell to ocean
the ocean, for that matter, to me. us both fatigued, showing signs of wreckage
and that man I had loved stood back from the edge of things
he did not hold me
I expected not to be held
we all understood one another: shepherd understudy, ocean, me
and did he go back to his fields and caves? yes, but they were gone
strip-mining, lumber, defoliant, sterile streams: you knew that was coming
weren't we taught some starched sermon: the pasture awaits us elsewhere
back up a moment: the forest you mentioned—remember, instead of a grove?
untouched for the most part. some human damage, but not ours
we left no mark, not there in the midst of those great trees:
not in the concentric rings that might have held us far past living
instead, I put that man, like so many others, on paper—
a tree already gone from sight where once it had drawn the eyes
upward: the crest of a mountain. crumpled thoughts, crumpled love
shepherdboy, do you see the wild fennel bulbs I gathered for you
olallieberries, new-mown grass, the tender fruits of the coastal fig?
I put them on paper, too, so fragile. for nothing is ever going to last
corydon & alexis, redux
and yet we think that song outlasts us all: wrecked devotion
the wept face of desire, a kind of savage caring that reseeds itself and grows in clusters
oh, you who are young, consider how quickly the body deranges itself
how time, the cruel banker, forecloses us to snowdrifts white as god's own ribs
what else but to linger in the slight shade of those sapling branches
yearning for that vernal beau. for don't birds covet the seeds of the honey locust
and doesn't the ewe have a nose for wet filaree and slender oats foraged in the meadow
kit foxes crave the blacktailed hare: how this longing grabs me by the nape
guess I figured to be done with desire, if I could write it out
dispense with any evidence, the way one burns a pile of twigs and brush
what was his name? I'd ask myself, that guy with the sideburns and charming smile
the one I hoped that, as from a sip of hemlock, I'd expire with him on my tongue
silly poet, silly man: thought I could master nature like a misguided preacher
as if banishing love is a fix. as if the stars go out when we shut our sleepy eyes
Copyright
D. A. Powell