1. This shawl of hair and sighs This long legged complaint This vessel of hope and hunger going forth on a cold morning This grave as long as a lifetime This endless ardor This waterproof package of desire wet by internal tears This constant confabulation of icons and landscapes: You: barefaced plan for the five eternities The eternity of Fire Water Earth Air and the fifth element @3You@1, comic extension of spirit Under the tragic mask. 2. Because body is tragic while spirit can step free. Because body is hunger leading toward death. Body suffers for spirit to create more spirit. And defies spirit so that spirit may wither or grow. Body would deny death to the amusement of spirit. Body would deny death to put love in place of spirit. Body would deny death to the consternation of all process. Body would annul time and because it would annul time body is trapped in time. Desire moves body -- so all must be paid for in time . . . 3. But body can transcend time through desire and dream. And dream can transform desire when desire goes beyond body. And desire becomes dream again when it goes beyond itself. Ah, woman! -- cinched and sinued to the immanent world By your public hair . . . O vessel of earthly longing, Carrier of what is most sane in the general dream . . . As you sail out into the unknown sea, A child goes forth under the changed constellations. Used with the permission of Copper Canyon Press, P.O. Box 271, Port Townsend, WA 98368-0271, www.cc.press.org | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIA BOSTON COMMON, MAY 31, 1897 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH ODE ON A DISTANT PROSPECT OF ETON COLLEGE by THOMAS GRAY IN MEMORIAM A.H.H.: 101 by ALFRED TENNYSON ON A MOURNER by ALFRED TENNYSON THE SUPLIANTS: IO. CHORUS by AESCHYLUS BOTHWELL: PART 5 by WILLIAM EDMONSTOUNE AYTOUN |