he was worn leatherand loud gun oil;
sweet tobacco, rye whiskey
and musk sweat
he had roman hands
not the fingers of war
and his bore eyes
held what no eyes should
he was pure ore
and Tennessee corn
a slow tongue
careful with a word
his lips were country full
warm as mountain sunshine
smooth as the edge
of a rainbow
he had a Cheyenne nose
and complexion to match
skin calf soft
ruddy, flush, alive
his slabbed chest
was as plow
steeled it seemed
in the wages of soil
his arms lean
veins of wire
muscles as rope
taut, tight, lithe
and when he kissed me
I was as the wind
before a storm
before the rain
before his slap of lightning
struck dumb
he held me thus
as a sail holds
the breeze
and I felt as
upon the ocean
filled of him
fulfilled of us
wind and sail
together
sailing
this is how
it was
this is how language
fails me now
this is how
my memory
grows him like crop
forever spring
4 comments:
ah but the words in this did not fail...
Wonderfully done! I think I am gonna re-read it now.
Thanks Cat. I think Mary is doing her best to preserve the memory of Virgil, to somehow codify not just his physical attributes, but in the accumulation, to point to something greater (the whole sail and wind metaphor for the union of two into one, a singular purpose, dovetail fit). I also sense she wrote this in reaction to the resistance she has/is getting from those who want her to move on, to get over it, to get a life, to move beyond--it is as if she is writing as much to them as for herself, but as in most of life, where one thing ends and another begins is always in question. Still, this elegy, if I can call it that, this need within her to understand what has happened is, for lack of a better term, dream-like, poetic pouring of heart, the retrieval of water from a deep well. Still, we see, at the end, she feels like she has failed, that mere words cannot capture what it is she experienced, what it is that no one else can understand, what it is that now separates her from virtually everyone else, and, as we know, condemns her to a life of solitude.
What can I say except I clear forgot what socks were.
How your words draw, as though suspended in nothingness as the surroundings drop away, perching on nothing but the next word, heart quickening knowing only as it begins imagination has been captured, heart, mind and soul surrendered to the journey of another, life and love in vibrant swirls, restoring that momentary suspension to a feeling of being enfolded within. So aromatic, intense, grounded, I'm reminded of something Von once wrote, of leaving the boat, of swimming within, your expressiveness is unprecendented,
he was worn leather
and loud gun oil;
sweet tobacco, rye whiskey
and musk sweat
to remember just a part of this exquisitely redolent depiction. I hear the same things bubbling to the surface wanting to be said as I read this work, that you are like no other, that you write like no other, that you possess a mystifying ability to create with words in a way that makes them real in every way but one.
filled of him
fulfilled of us
Sitting here right now in the aftermath, I cannot think of anything more beautiful than this piece of writing.
Returning, there's more to say.
Ms Storm, you are very kind and I am very pleased you like this post, as do I. I am trying to learn to write with more ore, with more wheat and less chaff and to do so on first draft, without revision. I want to write free of the conscious mind, free of an editor or actor or even writer who knows he will be read, but instead to let my mind freewheel, the yarn flying off the spindle, into the ether, the air without intelligent design or artifice, but simply as it is, not as I am. A contradiction, I know and I won't argue the point. But I want the open boxcars of my train filled with ore, heaping raw mineral so rich, so bright, so raw as to exist without me, to exist as if it was always there, before or after. You know, I really should have more coffee before I ramble a comment like this. :-D
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