|
Robert Ronnow's most recent poetry collections are New & Selected Poems: 1975-2005(Barnwood Press, 2007) and Communicating the Bird (Broken Publications, 2012). Visit his web site atwww.ronnowpoetry.com. Life Is Not a Curse I’m not hard, I’m scared. I thought the cherry was the birch. When the cloud cleared I was still afraid. At my best I accept death As a necessary search, wary Of philosophies That assign us souls but not the trees. Nonetheless I want long life, yes, I want to plant my seed and walk the wilderness. But not yet. First I must just sit. Sit and feel the pain That keeps me sane. Eat my meal quietly and remain A guest In the body I know best. This morning in the east The sun rose on the lake. Again I breathed. I was blessed And thought to say Life is not a curse. Born Again If, as they say, the cells of the body are replaced every seven years, then I’m a new being since my sons were newborn. I have died and been reborn neither better nor worse yet remembering feeding them while dancing to Moment’s Notice, as they attended with new minds. Having died, as such, I find I do not mind quiet living with the purpose of a cell unbound by minutes or moments as men know them. There are seven deadly sins, seven ways of remembering, seven stages in which to have been or continue being. None of them recur after one’s reborn and none are known to us from before we’re born. Of the two young people to whom I was born, one has lately died. I do not so much mind. Although I do not, he believed he’d be reborn and who can say what happened to his soul or cells? Perhaps in Christ we continue being, or with some other deity, as the churches claim monotonously, momentously, demonically and deviously. It seems about as relevant that seven rhymes with heaven and rhyming’s a mnemonic device (for remembering). But remembering what? To go to the daily discipline to which you were born? I fought seven forest fires, took seven lovers, my sons are seven, and my mind is the sole owner and subsidiary of these memories and moments. Unless I am to be reborn they disappear with me. Masefield’s poem continues to be the most honest and chilling assessment of our souls’ and cells’ disbursement. I can imagine stem cell research may lead to a cure for dementia, loss of memory about who you are and where you’ve been. If one’s not been born this doesn’t matter. But if you’re being reborn, in the sense of “he not busy being born is busy being reborn” (Dylan), then it is best and most correct to consider your last moment of a continuum with moments endless and entirely in your mind. The mind is made of cells and moments, seven billion of them. Remember to be born and reborn, early and often. Can Poetry Matter In the debate between accessible and difficult poems Poets’ poems and poems for people Only the single poem and private reader matter Both kinds and anything between can matter or not Solid or made of air, a vase or heavy clay ashtray One word repeated or many like a lei An acquired taste, like wine, and like wine Not sustenance, yet men die with their miseries Uncut without it, news and mere matter I advise everyone to keep a personal anthology of poems that matter Or not. Perhaps it should be novels. Stones, insect wings, Feathers, Birds you’ve seen, People loved.
3 Comments
|
RSS Feed
