a new place...

from my anthology of must read (a)merican poems

David Ignatow

from Shadowing the Ground: 63


I must train myself to no longer exist
but as a stone lifted and thrown
to wherever I land, a new place,
a new odor to it and new sound
and action surrounding me, all this
without the thought of loss, despair,
or hope, a preparation for loss.
Such a life would be god’s, if one
existed. But it is life I can assume
is god’s, and I can live it.

*

The focus of this Ignatow poem reflects the most ancient of poetic rivers – stepping outside the self – to live as a a stone lifted and thrown to wherever I land. Places, odors, and sounds that are new. A place beyond despair - and here is the truest part - and a place beyond hope. Shedding all those weights – and there are many – that hold back the best part of whatever the self is. Letting go. “Such a life,” Ignatow writes, “would be god’s.”

Ignatow begins the poem: “I must train myself”. The answers, however far-reaching or improbable they may be, begin within. The poetic I – so vital to great writers from Vallejo to Bishop, from Dickinson to Borges to Snyder – is believable in Ignatow’s world. There is a choice, a perception, an accepting of the moment.

But the real import is that it’s a life I can live. It is a life – considereing the implications that Ignatow raises at the end of the piece – that should be or, at least, can be lived beyond the world of things.