Monday, April 5, 2010
Avoiding the Mirror
Avoiding the Mirror
For weeks you've somehow managed it, no small miracle
of maneuvering in a culture fixed on form, obsessed by polish,
fixated on each furrowed mark of wit and wonder and weather.
Now spring and sun collude each time you pass a pane. You're
drawn like string, like bees, like being called--to face your face. To
see if you're still there. A sort-of-you confronts you in the glare.
Accept the dare.
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Sneaky! Didn't realize you put it up. I gotta RSS this thing.
ReplyDeleteSo, The last line is perfect. It turns the poem in a totally unexpected direction, both because it is so commanding, and also because it is a stand-alone suggestion of how to live your life. It moves the poem from the awkwardness of facing your own reflection - how it can be embarrassing, or strange, or unfamiliar, or worrisome - and asks you to look one second longer, more deeply. The line disarms the reader like a deeply looked-at reflection of yourself disarms you. It almost asks you to smile at yourself.
But I am ahead of myself, and that ending is only possible because of what comes before it. (I've read this poem easily 30 times already, so I just know it well). These. Two. Tercets. Are. Perfection.
As you are wont to have happen, the title is working double time (like a mirror) to let us know we're going to be looking into a mirror (looking at ourselves through the stanzas) and that we probably won't like it (we avoid) and that, by the nature of reading a poem, we're going to be looking anyway (and we use the mirror, or course, as a deeper metaphor for looking within). Meta-metaphor.
An easy start at first though: you've managed to avoid the mirror/looking at yourself successfully for weeks, and this is no small feat given the nature of our society which is obsessed with how we look, externally (form! polish!) - best part about this stanza is that the not-looking also means we haven't LOOKED at ourselves....we've kept shit moving so we don't have to reflect. All this expressed in the simplest, most beautiful group of W words ever: wit, wonder, weather: all ways to refer to wisdom, and age; all ways to refer to marks on a face.
And now, spring and sun collude. HA! Don't they though? The brightness of our reflections is somehow greater in Spring (because winter was rough and we made it!) - and it happens each time we pass a pane. How do I love thee, homonym? Let me count the ways: always, when we move through pain, there is sun - a brightness, an epiphany, a new understanding - on the other side. Each time we pass a window, we have to look at ourselves - this is the most commonly human of traits. What's so clever is that, we are less inclined to look within after a pain, than we are to look in a mirror at ourselves when we pass a pane - though looking at our own face is somewhat harder (thanks to society’s critical eye always in our minds) than looking within at where we've come and feeling joy at our growth! Humans are odd!
Then you tell us how we're called to the looking: we are either raveled or unraveled by the calling (string); we are either orderly and meticulous, or honey drunk by the calling (bees); we are either compelled by an internal voice or reeled-in by some external one (being called) - and this is the magic of a mirror! Each looking is both inside and outside: at our form, and our content. Because it is impossible to look at ourselves in a mirror and not see our whole selves! Brilliant. And just kill me with face your face (it is a mirror), it is inside (to face) confronting outside (your face) - a you there (to face)/ a sort-of-you (your face) in glare. And what a rhyme. Giddy with rhyme.
Accept the dare. Do it. Look. Always, always look. Your KILLING last line. Now I have died.
This is a genius poem. I think it might be my favorite so far. The more I read it, the more I see. This is your particular poem magic. Fantastic. It’s your Gemini poem.