On The Difficulty Of Documentation (audio only)
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
From the Academy of American Poets Audio Archive. www.poets.org. All rights reserved.
Click the icon above to listen to this audio poem.
From the Academy of American Poets Audio Archive. www.poets.org. All rights reserved.
Foresee how dried, yellowed,
with neglect, think
of the hands that made them,
not with love, with certainty,
the leather smooth decades later,
the pages warm as wood,
the thought reaching a seed
that fell from a bird’s flight,
Now that we have come out of hiding,
Why would we live again in the tombs we’d made out of our souls?
And the sundered bodies that we’ve reassembled
With prayers and consolations,
What would their torn parts be, other than flesh?
Now that we have tasted hope
And dressed each other’s wounds with the legends of our
oneness
Would we not prefer to close our mouths forever shut
On the wine that swilled inside them?
1.
My child wants to know if the mountains really cowered.
“How do you know when a sea or a river is afraid?
How do you know when the sky is thinking yes or no?
And why did Adam say yes—Did he know that
all the other creatures refused? Was he arrogant
or just ignorant? Was he God’s last choice?”
2.
“Did you really have a party the day the dictator died?