(no subject)

[bronze_ribbons]

qrssama, marymary, editors who want to publish me and just don't know it yet, and whomever else to which this may apply -- my act, it is in hiding. Otherwise, it would have been together enough to send your goodies/postcards instead of letting them languish on my desk. Tomorrow I shall go chase it down and shlep your things to ye. At least some of them. At least, provided there are no holes in the net. Ah, me.

For the moment, though, I've just finished drafting two new poems and am almost done with my mug of tangerine tea. And I'm lingering over Denise Levertov's "For Those Whom the Gods Love Less":

When you discover
your new work travels the ground you had traversed
decades ago, you wonder, panicked,
"Have I outlived my vocation? Said already
all that was mine to say?"
There's a remedy--
only one--for the paralysis seizing your throat to mute you,
numbing your hands: Remember the great ones, remember Cézanne
doggedly sur le motif, his mountain
a tireless noonday angel he grappled like Jacob,
demanding reluctant blessing. Remember James rehearsing
over and over his theme, the loss
of innocence and the attainment
(note by separate note sounding its tone
until by accretion a chord resounds) of somber
understanding. Each life in art
goes forth to meet dragons that rise from their bloody scales
in cyclic rhythm: Know and forget, know and forget.
It's not only
the passion for getting it right (though it's that, too)
it's the way
radiant epiphanies recur, recur,
consuming, pristine, unrecognized --
until remembrance dismays you. And then, look,
some inflection of light, some wing of shadow
is other, unvoiced. You can, you must
proceed.

- from The Body Electric (Norton, 2001)

Comments

[musigneus.livejournal.com]

Worth lingering over. Thanks for sharing it.

[qrssama.livejournal.com]

Don't sweat it, girlfriend. My act has been hanging out on the couch, steadfastly ignoring all obligations, desires of contact, and other motivating features past whatever is going to explode immediately if not attended to.