12.3.07

something out in the dark...





After


Jane Hirshfield


(Harper Collins, 2006)







Against Certainty

There is something out in the dark that wants to correct us.
Each time I think “this,” it answers “that.”
Answers hard, in the heart-grammar’s strictness.

If I then say “that,” it too is taken away.

Between certainty and the real, and ancient enmity.
When the cat waits in the path-hedge,
no cell of her body is not waiting.
This is how she is able so completely to disappear.

I would like to enter the silence portion as she does.

To live amid the great vanishing as a cat must live,
one shadow fully at ease inside another.

*

If you can only read one collection of poetry this year... let it be Jane Hirshfield’s After. Her poems prod, disturb, awaken – each page, an experience.

“To live amid the great vanishing” – That notion will carry me the rest of my life. Entering the silence – yes – is the way to develop most fully as identity, as writer, as being.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

this went right through me:

"no cell of her body is not waiting.
This is how she is able so completely to disappear."

Oh how to be so meta present there is no friction...

ps: loving the Lynda Hull so far...

Anonymous said...

ooh ooh thank you for reminding me that this is out there! love her.

Collin Kelley said...

I really like that poem. Thanks for recommending her new book.

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Thanks for the read Melissa. I knew you'd like Hull.

And goodness gracious, I'm going to give a test on the material, so you better start reading.

Collin, thanks for the read. It is a great poem, and there are 50 more just like that one in the book. She is phenomenal.

Christine E. Hamm, Poet Professor Painter said...

I love Hirshfield. On vacation I read one of her books over and over. Till it sunk in.

Unknown said...

I love her poetry. Have every single one of her books. She's magnificant.

C. E. Chaffin said...

Great poem, great poet. My sister-in-law incidentally shares a horse with her in the Bay Area, though I have yet to meet her. How about posting one of your poems again, Sam?

sam of the ten thousand things said...

Thanks Christine, Jenni, and CE.

CE, I no longer post my own work at the 10,000 blog, but do at the notebook blog.