Air In The Epic
On the under-mothered world in crisis, | |
the omens agree. A Come here | follows for reader & hero through |
the named winds as spirits are | |
lifted through the ragged colorful o's on | butterflies called fritillarics, tortoise shells & |
blues till their vacation settles under | |
the vein of an aspen leaf | like a compass needle stopped in |
an avalanche. The students are moving. | |
You look outside the classroom where | construction trucks find little Troys. Dust |
rises: part pagan, part looping. Try | |
to describe the world, you tell | them—but what is a description? |
For centuries people carried the epic | |
inside themselves. (Past the old weather | stripping, a breeze is making some |
6th-vowel sounds yyyyyy that will side | |
with you on the subject of syntax | as into the word wind they |
go. A flicker passes by: air | |
let out of a Corvette tire.) | Side stories leaked into the epic, |
told by its lover, the world. | |
The line structure changed. Voices grew | to the right of all that. |
The epic is carried into school | |
then to scoopedout chairs. Scratchy holes | in acoustic tiles pull whwhoo-- from |
paperbacks. There's a type of thought | |
between trance & logic where teachers | rest & the mistake you make |
when you're not tired is no breathing. | |
The class is shuffling, something an | island drink might cure or a |
citrus goddess. They were mostly raised | |
in tanklike SUVs called Caravan or | Quest; winds rarely visited them. Their |
president says global warming doesn't exist. | |
Some winds seem warmer here. Some. | Warriors are extra light, perhaps from |
ponies galloping across the plains. | |
Iphigenia waits for winds to start. | |
Winds stowed in goatskins were meant | to be released by wise men: |
gusts & siroccos, chinooks, hamsins, whooshes, | |
blisses, katabatics, Santa Anas, & foehns. | Egyptian birds were thought to be |
impregnated by winds. The Chinese god | |
of wind has a red-&-blue cap | like a Red Sox fan. Students |
dislike even thinking about Agamemnon. You | |
love the human species when you | see them, even when they load |
their backpacks early & check the | |
tiny screens embedded in their phones. | A ponytail hodler switches with light, |
beguiled. Iphigenia waits for the good. | |
Calphas & her father have mistaken the | forms of air: Zephyr, Borcas, Eurus |
the grouchy east breeze & Notos | |
bringer of rains. Maybe she can | see bones in the butterfly wings |
before they invent the X-ray. Her | |
father could have removed the sails | & rowed to Troy. Nothing makes |
sense in war, you say. Throw | |
away the hunger & the war's | all gone. There's a section between |
the between of joy & terror | |
where the sailors know they shouldn't | open the sack of winds. It |
gives the gods more credit. An | |
oracle is just another nature. There's | a space between the two beeps |
of the dump truck where the | |
voice can rest. Their vowels join | the names of winds in white |
acoustic tiles. A rabbit flies across | |
the field with Zephyr right behind. | Wind comes when warm air descends. |
The imagined comes from the imargined. |
Credit
Brenda Hillman, "Air in the Epic," from Pieces of Air in the Epic, © 2005 by Brenda Hillman. Used by permission of Wesleyan University Press.
Author
Brenda Hillman

Brenda Hillman is the author of ten poetry collections, including Extra Hidden Life, among the Days (Wesleyan University Press, 2018). She received the Academy of American Poets Fellowship in 2012 and currently serves as a Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets.
Date Published: 2004-12-31
Source URL: https://poets.org/poem/air-epic