Rescued by Books
In that house, it was be not seen nor heard nor understood.
Toys lived in the bedroom, along with breath-held play.
Noisy play lived in the street and neighbors' yards.
You learned early to live in your mind. Gorging on worlds,
growing thoughts like watermelons, brewing a silent
subversion that no angry hands or words could touch.
When a book breaks your heart, it's a gift.
Noisy play lived in the street and neighbors' yards.
You learned early to live in your mind. Gorging on worlds,
growing thoughts like watermelons, brewing a silent
subversion that no angry hands or words could touch.
When a book breaks your heart, it's a gift.
EEEEEEE! Gonna repeat self here just for perpetuity, but have to add, the whole his/that "revision" is why you are a genius.
ReplyDeleteThe title is the answer to this poem, in perfect phrasing. Because of
its set-up, we immediately understand that escape into books is how to
achieve the following: not being seen, heard, understood; of not
making a sound, no play (no childlikeness!) and holding breath (as one
might, escaping into books like Chronicles of Narnia - they take your
breath away) All good things happened elsewhere therefore all bad
things happen in that house. So escape into books.
BE NOT I love so much - it's a command, like from God (that house!), and also a phrase that means NOT to be! Like, go away. Leave this present tense. DO NOT BE! Hide yourself, little thing. Save yourself. It's the only time I think so far I've seen you flip syntax like that, and it works SO WELL. Way to pull out the ACES at the right time.
Second tercet is MY FAVORITE. gorging on worlds (reads as words because you said books in the title <3) Food becomes ideas, and ideas become food - the only sustenance one gets, so it becomes all one needs. Our little speaker gorges on worlds, and grows thoughts like watermelons! Then, because of that brewing a silent (which on its own, even out of this poem is a gorgeous combination of words) makes you
think of food also, but no. This one means hunger: this one's making
herself an island. Anger Island.
Then you destroy us with your last line. Which is the opposite of mad.
Which explains how everything works - we each have to save ourselves,
tender, tender things (escape life, be angry, be untouchable, protect
self!) but because we let ourselves be broken by books (open to some
external wonderful force) - we will be saved in the long run - meaning, all that pain we sustained actually made us understand. Not become callous.
well done. How many is this now? TOO MANY TO COUNT! riding, riding!
I certainly believe in the rescue of books, preferably those comfortably in the hand with the smell of deep woods and smoky pots of ink, the thin silky ribbon cast out of the spine like a shivering nerve clinging close to the page for warmth.
ReplyDeletePoems, or any chance of conversation or bit of a list or a story, can catch me and break my heart or my head or even open my hand, whether to toss the book across the room in fury or uncontainable joy, or to open and pass along to another, or to open and write in return, like now.
I'm far too behind to even attempt to catch up with Melissa, and tho' i run a rogue poetry class with a handful of hapless but curious seniors, i've got nothing of the language of poetry to contribute -- Melissa is perceptive and articulate alike, and full of cheering which i second.
It seems a truth what you said way back at the beginning of March, "Melissa is the reason i registered this blog", and clearly rightly so.
I am astonished and gladdened in each and every of the poems since i first looked at the first. I want to spend more time with them and their choral recollections, sounding back and forth.
The Sevenlings form seems so surely yours, just as Melissa says. I feel shy to stumble into the midst of your conversation with Melissa in poems and readings.
Maybe more another time, but for the moment, feeling rescued by not books but a blog -- i suppose this is part of what you've been trying to teach me. I'm listening.