I and other members of my poetry workshop will be giving a public reading (my first!) tomorrow, Thursday, at noon in the Mansfield Library lobby. The lobby. Oh, God.
It's not a big deal, really. We're each reading two poems -- one our own, the other by a poet who has inspired us. I'll be reading a revision of my "Skyline Sailing," plus a poem by my very favorite writer in the whole wide world, Barbara Kingsolver.
I am a big fan of Barbara's fiction and essays, but although I had her book of poetry, "Another America," on my shelf, I hadn't read it in years. So I was pleased to discover in it, when I went looking recently, this poem that so complemented my own:
"Watershed"
By Barbara Kingsolver
Outside, coyotes wail
like orphaned children, the moon
their old tin photograph of home.
In other mountains like these, there is war.
Your eyes swim quick strokes
in sealed wet caves whose mouths
are tattooed with dreams. I wonder
if I'm there with you,
if, when your breath snags on acacia claws
and then pulls free, you are telling some truth
that could save us, that tomorrow will be
perfectly gone, a blueprint drawn on water.
Your sleep, and the coyotes
will quiet soon. The world might end
or begin. There are two good hours till dawn.
Insomnia was once the thief I hated,
tucking tomorrow's triumphs in his pockets.
But after these years I am easing myself out
of triumphant ambitions,
that bath has grown too cold.
I can lie here in the watershed
of your sleep, instead,
watching dreams pass under
the perfect ivory aquaduct of your bones.
Had I slept, it would only have been another hour
in which you were lost to me.
~
4 Comments:
ahhh, Barbara Kingsolver. I just finished my second novel by her (The Bean Trees), plus I've read one of the essay collections. Yeah, I am a big fan.
Good luck with your reading! I'm sure you'll do fine.
"Their old tin photographs of home"--that's beautiful. Right there.
And so is the poem of yours that you read. I'm actually proud of myself for commenting on it when you posted it. I'm so where I need to be on the Worldwide Web. Who knew?
So how'd it go, Patia?!
Thanks, y'all. The reading went fine. It was actually kind of fun, in a terrifying sort of way. Our audience consisted of fellow classmates, a few librarians, two busloads of sixth-graders that filed in halfway through, and college students entering and leaving the library and stopping just long enough to figure out what was going on.
I think I'll post my revised version of my poem ....
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