Tag Virgo

* youthful counting with W.S. Merwin

José Angel Araguz 1 Comment

I remember when I came across this week’s poem in 2008.

I was living another life on a street called Olive. The newsprint of the journal I was subscribed to at the time was never more precious, seemingly perishable, as when I read and later copied out this lyric by hand.

I knew then the poem was doing more than I could see.

The lack of punctuation echoed what I had then read and reread of Robert Frost, how he felt the language and phrasing of speech should guide as it does here. Also: how Frost could fill in a fifty character telegraph message with one sentence and no need for punctuation.

The other thing I catch now that I didn’t then is how the poem is worked out in ten syllable lines. I have been doing this kind of syllabic counting for years, but rarely have I caught others in the act. Makes  me want to go over so many poems again and reread them with sharper eyes.

Which is the hope, really, of youth: to sharpen.

Over time, I’ve seen that one does not necessarily sharpen, but things do: memories especially.

Merwin’s last line here is for the ages.

* not so insta-gram *

* not so insta-gram *

Youth – W.S. Merwin

Through all of youth I was looking for you
without knowing what I was looking for

or what to call you I think I did not
even know I was looking how would I

have known you when I saw you as I did
time after time when you appeared to me

as you did naked offering yourself
entirely at that moment and you let

me breathe you touch you taste you knowing
no more than I did and only when I

began to think of losing you did I
recognize you when you were already

part memory part distance remaining
mine in the ways that I learn to miss you

from what we cannot hold the stars are made

 ***

Happy mading!

Jose

* key connections with James Merrill

José Angel Araguz Leave a comment
* memory lane *

* memory lane *

The above is a photo taken at my former place of work, Smith Family Bookstore in Eugene, Oregon.

I found myself a little home(stacks)sick this past week as I took a stroll at a nearby bookstore. For me, there’s no real comparing bookstores with each other because, given enough time, things happen at one store that you carry with you no matter where you go.

The used bookstore here in Cincy has found a place in my reading memory for being the place where I ran across this week’s poem by James Merrill.

Merrill is a poet I’ve long been trying to get into. I’ve picked up books of his in NYC, Corpus Christi, & the above store in Eugene.

This week, however, I found the key into his work. It’s the kind of personal connection that is too bright to see clearly, you just say: Wow! I found the poem! I share it with you folks in that spirit.

I hope you marvel as I did at how he builds playfully and intriguingly into and out of a dream. The line: Fingers were running in panic over the flute’s nine gates, alone gets me going all over again.

I also was moved to find out what wisteria looks like because of this poem. Here you go:

* wisteria, yo *

* wisteria, yo *

The Mad Scene – James Merrill

Again last night I dreamed the dream called Laundry.
In it, the sheets and towels of a life we were going to share,
The milk-stiff bibs, the shroud, each rag to be ever
Trampled or soiled, bled on or groped for blindly,
Came swooning out of an enormous willow hamper
Onto moon-marbly boards. We had just met. I watched
From outer darkness. I had dressed myself in clothes
Of a new fiber that never stains or wrinkles, never
Wears thin. The opera house sparkled with tiers
And tiers of eyes, like mine enlarged by belladonna,
Trained inward. There I saw the cloud-clot, gust by gust,
Form, and the lightning bite, and the roan mane unloosen.
Fingers were running in panic over the flute’s nine gates.
Why did I flinch? I loved you. And in the downpour laughed
To have us wrung white, gnarled together, one
Topmost mordent of wisteria,
As the lean tree burst into grief.

***

Happy bursting!

Jose