| Poem for Thursday |
[Nov. 21st, 2002|10:27 am] |
Constantly
by Jane Shore
I woke, for an instant,
not knowing you.
Before touch, before
the thought of touch.
In the level darkness
I could locate
nothing of you,
no manacle of outline,
and I thought
how, each morning, the body
wakes to recognize
its shape, again
the tender landscape
given, the strangeness
of the right hand
orbiting the side,
the wrists where pulse
can quicken at a word.
And the body,
fluent in its element,
is water that the dailiness
of life runs over.
Now this, now
that; heartbeat,
the pupil widening
to light, admits
what's attended to—
a chair mimics
the woman seated,
cup's handle accepts
her hand. The body
receptive also, and birds
occupy the ear.
In darkness, the eye
shapes its constellation.
The hand
traces. Two fish
swim in their starry
perimeters, but the bird's
song's instinct,
a template in the brain.
Never let me fix you
ever, be the cloud
constantly inventing
its body like a dream
passing through your eye,
each morning dreaming
the sky a moment earlier
to light, skimming the sudden
unfamiliar coast.
And below the coast,
in the clearest water
senses can distill, here,
before love, touch returns
us to that density
silence roots the very
center of.
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