Wednesday, November 14, 2012

Ten crooked fingers to count with

Not that it matters, but this is definitely one of my to 10 favorite poems ever.

This World, Not the Next 

by Lance Larsen

True, God dreamed our first parents out
of chaos of firmament and longing.
And true, he pled with them to return
to a delicious Forever of his making.
But it was this world, with its tides and machinery
of sweet decay, they learned to love.

He touched their hair, then covered their sleeping
mouths with His and declared breath
holy, but forced them to draw another
and another.  He commanded that they eat
not of that dazzling tree of awe and penumbra,
but knew its fruit would eat at them.

And when it did, and when they fell
into knowing, God folded the garden and hid it
deep inside the woman, but commanded
the man to tend it.  And in due season the man
Eved, and the woman Adamed back
and the song of radiance they keened was pure

darkness by morning.  And God blessed
their bounty to be infinite, but left them
ten crooked fingers to count with.
And buried His echo inside their bodies,
a delicious lapping that answered yes and yes
though neither could remember the question

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Oo. Good question. ee cummings' "My father moved through dooms of love," absolutely and no questions asked. Can I count Eliot's "The Wasteland" as one? Basically all Hamlet's soliloquies, as well as many of those from A Midsummer Night's Dream, and I love Shakespeare's late romances (that's almost all in meter, so I'm counting it). I love Seamus Heaney. I don't think that Wislawa Szymborska (at least in translation) is The Best Thing Ever, but I think her poetry is absolutely delightful. I like a lot of, say Scott Cairns' stuff, and B.H Fairchild. Um...

      Oh wait, that's, like, way more than 9? Life is too short for favorites.

      Delete
  2. Yes! Life is too short for favorites. With all the few hours we have for breath, Ten Crooked Fingers is very good

    ReplyDelete