In Praise of Bereft Syllables
(after Giovanni Bellini)
I started working on something, and it was really bad, it was crummy. But I was really so happy just to be working on a little crummy thing. And I would get home, and I would think, "it's waiting for me!" You know, I would have the draft on the counter, and I would move it from room to room. And I would look at it, and each time I looked at it, it was still the same thing. -- From a Louise Gluck interview
It's always the same--it's one day, after many
days of silence, so I will take what I've been given.
I feel like (oh so much like!) Simeon Stylites on the
desert pillar putting vermin back into a sore,
telling it to eat what God has given,
as though I'm the creature’s parent of some
undefined gender: most likely its mom
because I have this ill-fitting maternalism
even toward flesh-eating creatures
even though I'm by nature paternalistic.
I simply have to be someone's mother
even if only a beetle or a worm
to feel like I'm gifting nature by
gifting someone else. No wonder
little animals like me: I am the source,
the nourisher who needs to give
and therefore to receive in return,
the imperfect servant, Francis of Assisi,
extending my arms toward the morning light,
a voice full of praise even against my howling bones,
my back that aches,
feet that will not carry me to greet the day.
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Ken Wolman http://awfulrowing.wordpress.com/
"All writers are hunters, and parents are the most available prey."
--Francine du Plessix Gray
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