or, alternatively—a purple patch that Emily,
perhaps, with reams at her disposal, or naked
Thomas Stearns, with academic robes to set
the staging right, or Plath, with daily ways to
cut the quicksand with a knife, or brother Jon,
with bus-stop mallards that resonate, or any
soul who may not suffer, necessarily, outright,
still the same, imbues this canon after-flame.
And so, and so, I mole into your ranks. There’s
little here to martial me or any purple patch
pretender to inchoate or incandescent heights
when art is most at stake. I solely empathize
that parenting is taking place—our kids, their
queries outer space, our mutual meeting place
in ‘how was your day’ and ‘love you anyway,’
which qualify as art. Yon mallards fly with me.
Thank you for the nod, dear brother, though
ReplyDeleteI wonder what I’m doing in this rhyme,
so ostentatiously in line with Tom
and Sylvia and Emily, or how
a poem about ducks has turned into
a resonating flame, or whether I’m
no less yon mole within your better pome,
no more than blindly nibbling as I go.
Still, and so, I empathize with you
and Eliot and Plath and Dickinson:
we try, and not with academic sway
or purple poetry but as we can,
inchoately, to cut through the quicksand now
and make note of the mallard everyday.
Exactly (as Josh likes to say)! There are a couple literary terms I esteem more than most critics: 'pathetic fallacy' and 'purple patch' to describe process more than aesthetic satisfaction, per se. I enjoyed drafting three poems in four days, close to Plath's process and probably Dickinson's, and the fact you have been reviewing your poetry on a daily basis gave more impetus, as did my favorite poem of 'Thirty Birds'. Where T.S. fits in? well, also a muse and a blend between professor and artisan, worth aspiring to.
ReplyDeleteTwo by-the-ways: Plath, for all her pathos and productivity, impresses me less and less; tonight I won't write about a 'goose egg', though that will be an eventuality in my waning basketball career. For now, I'll make note of mallards and call it a day!