Breaking
We forget our first relationships to limbs: Our own and those
of the broad-armed trees we climb. Our earliest climbing is just to
learn we can; and then, to reach for fruit, for freedom--to ascend.
Our earliest running is just to learn we can; soon comes flat-out
flying--the urgency, the need that springs from being newly, nearly
free. We forget our first relationships to limbs.
Our earliest falling is just to learn we can.
What a fantastic surprise, the title! I was wondering what it was going to be and of course this is perfect. There are so many ways and things to break: your heart, your arm, your fall, breaking open...it's perfect, because you get all this before you enter. I love that about your titles. They set you up so well, but not restrictively: it's like, they point you at a beautiful, wide open field.
ReplyDeleteNow, I watched you write this poem, so it was both interesting (UNDERSTATEMENT) to see in the moment how your mind was making the connections, and now, how, in reflection, the poem opens and opens evermore. As yours always do. Your mind is a natural brick layer, and it's beautiful to look at fast, but upon closer inspection, whoa.
I almost feel like I can't talk about this poem because there's so much - it's bigness feels impossible to articulate. But I will try.
First I am so surprised by relationship to limbs, because I had forgotten about my own arms and legs and now think only of trees. But as a child, all we think about, all we do, is figure out how to use this body. Without us being conscious of it, our body amazes us, and we fall in love with ourselves because of all we are able to do, just because we want to do it: to learn, reach, blossom, fly. Fruit and freedom! Love the perfectness of the metaphor, and LOVE the line. Thank you, SP for can/ascend. ASCEND!
Then, a trick! We're suddenly talking about running! I've again, in my old and wizened state forgotten about limbs, and think of freedom only in terms of my mind. So running is escape - right? No! or, not just...Freedom, and physical running (pushing the limbs beyond what you think they can handle) feel uncannily the same in the way they break you open. So then you bring back the opening line and puts me RIGHT BACK, because indeed, I HAVE FORGOTTEN ABOUT THAT FIRST RELATIONSHIP TO LIMBS! So now I know: we've gone far on those limbs; so far, we forgot that first most important thing we learned about them...
...we fall just to learn we can. GOOD GOD. We don't die. We live. I am speechless on that because the ENTIRE implication of the poem is falling and breaking - both necessary, both scary, both so possible and necessary. If we want to climb, and fly, we have to be open to falling and breaking. And the repetition of that opening line, PLUS the repetition of the "learn we can" THREE TIMES just rips open the sevenling! Seriously you complicated the form, tied it up into one of those amazing knots of yours, and still kept perfectly to its requirements. LOVE that poet mind of yours! This poem is rhythm, and beautiful.
Extra love: flat-out; newly, nearly; ALL OF IT.