[PW] Re: ?poem

[Ernest Avery]

Hi Stacey,
Are you thinking of the "The Interlude," by Karl Shapiro, specifically
section III? Section III was included in one of my high-school texts as
a stand-alone poem.

The Interlude

I 

Much of transfiguration that we hear, 
The ballet of the atoms, the second law 
Of thermo-dynamics, Isis, and the queer 


Fertilization of fish, the Catholic's awe 
For the life-cycle of the Nazarene, 
His wife whom sleeping Milton thought he saw; 


Much of the resurrection that we've seen 
And taken part in, like the Passion Play, 
All of autumnal red and April green, 


To those who walk in work from day to day, 
To economic and responsible man, 
All, all is substance. Life that lets him stay 


Uses his substance kindly while she can 
But drops him lifeless after his one span. 

II 

What lives? the proper creatures in their homes? 
A weed? the white and giddy butterfly? 
Bacteria? necklaces of chromosomes? 


What lives? the breathing bell of the clear sky? 
The crazed bull of the sea? Andean crags? 
Armies that plunge into themselves to die? 


People? A sacred relic wrapped in rags, 
The ham-bone of a saint, the winter rose, 
Do these?---And is there not a hand that drags 


The bottom of the universe for those 
Who still perhaps are breathing? Listen well, 
There lives a quiet like a cathedral close 


At the soul's center where substance cannot dwell 
And life flowers like music from a bell. 

III 

Writing, I crushed an insect with my nail 
And thought nothing at all. A bit of wing 
Caught my eye then, a gossamer so frail 

And exquisite, I saw in it a thing 
That scorned the grossness of the thing I wrote. 
It hung upon my finger like a sting. 


A leg I noticed next, fine as a mote, 
"And on this frail eyelash he walked," I said, 
"And climbed and walked like any mountain-goat." 


And in this mood I sought the little head, 
But it was lost; then in my heart a fear 
Cried out, "A life---why beautiful, why dead!" 


It was a mite that held itself most dear, 
So small I could have drowned it with a tear.

--from Collected Poems 1940-1978 (1978), Random House
 

No one who can read ever looks at a book, even unopened on a shelf,
like one who cannot.   --- Charles Dickens, Our Mutual Friend
=^..^=
Ernest L Avery
Technical Services Librarian
Editor, Reflections Literary Journal
Piedmont Community College
POB 1197, Roxboro NC 27573 USA
336-599-1181 Fax: 336-599-9146


>>> Stacey Marien <smarien at american.edu> 9/14/2006 9:04 am >>>

Folks,

This is for me, no rush - I have a friend who is trying to remember a
poem
she read in high school.  Here is her description:

This is what I (sort of remember): in the poem (or maybe in my dream
about the poem ;-(), she was sitting, at a desk, writing in a
notebook, and squashed the bug, and then noticed its part -- a leg?
a wing? -- lying on the white paper of her notebook. And then spoke
briefly (same ideas but much more succinct than the Margaret Lange
poem) about the life she'd so blithely taken.

It wasn't long. Maybe four stanzas? Two? Six?

In my mind's eye and memory's ear, I can see the grey spot on the
page where she squashed the bug; I can see the wing (translucent?
gossamer?) or leg (fragile? tensile? strength?) and think of verbs:
carried, aloft, free (freedom? freely?). I can see the author with
her chin in her hand, writing long-hand (did she set the scene or
did I?).

Anyone have any clues to this?

Stacey

Stacey Marien
Business and Economics Librarian
American University Library
4400 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20016
smarien at american.edu 
(202)885-3842
(202)885-1317 - Fax
AIM: staceyann370
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