Post by sapphiresavvy on Aug 2, 2009 19:33:03 GMT -5
I love this poem. I think it's one of Edward Hirsch's better ones, though he has many remarkable (and some less remarkable) writings. Today's been really hard on me, and for some reason it compelled me to share this poem with you, which touches on my certain mood. It's a bit long, rambly, and repetitive, but in the end very affecting.
Here it is.
(Apparently "you" is him).
_________
The Acrobat
Perhaps it begins in silence, in silence and awe.
Because think of the way, as a child, you could stand
Under the stars, dry and leafless in the open tent
Thinking of nothing, I mean not thinking of anything
Because there was nothing to think about, knowing that soon
The acrobat would lean out of his marvelous skin
And throw himself into the empty spaces,
Letting the wind gnaw gently at his limbs
Tortured into new postures, exotic faraway places.
But not even anticipating or even expecting it yet
Because it was better to let it come at you
Suddenly, like a cold shock of winter rain, or
The black wing of a storm, the crowd's insanity!
How you despised the clowns with their clumsy vigilance
And warped, colorful faces, their mockingbird smiles,
Although you already knew that they, too, were
Part of the meaning, part of the circumstance, and
That being there under the booming lights and veined sky
Was enough, maybe it was even what you could expect,
Like those pale green sunsets marred by oil derricks.
It was enough. And it could not be changed.
Once, when I was still only an apprentice
I spilled out of an iron swing into some hay
And suddenly remembered watching hundreds of ducks
Startled out of a wintry New Hampshire pond
By a solitary old man wearing a fur hat and
Carrying a hunting rifle. Afterwards I discovered
That the rusty swing was faulty and that although
No one admitted to being present, the ringmaster's rifle
Had exploded in a tent near the back of a stream
Just as I was falling out of my double somersault.
And this proved that I had relived the experience
Almost exactly, and that the mind is really a beacon
Or else a chipmunk scurrying around on its wheel,
Where we keep going away from ourselves,
Going away and returning.
Now it is autumn.
The leaves are coming off the branches
In a solemn procession of oranges and bright reds,
Dim purples, and even a few speckled, late summer greens.
And you can still remember standing in the momentary dark
Watching his right foot curl casually over the rope
And then his other foot swung up like a rider
Into a stirrup, and then the long vertical climb
High into the lights. Where the platform was a
Sand dune, or a lighthouse, and the crowd
Was a watery blur, a colorful syrup of streamers
You despised. And then the spotlight began rising
Like the beacon, the wooden platform evaporated,
And he finally moved. Yes, you can still remember
How some were repelled and turned away; some thought
This was a spectacle and mistook his small, tattooed body
For a zoo animal; some actually started to tremble,
And a few began their long, disfiguring applause.
But for you he was always and only a man
Spreading out like wings against the dark canvas,
Squeezing in and out of his own body into reservoirs
Of awed silence. A man rippling above us like the wind.
But then it was over. There was clapping, perhaps an ovation
And his body was closer, bunched up like an insect's.
It no longer mattered, but you hated him then, hated
His muscular scraping against the floor. His smallness.
You hated him. And you wished you were dead.
But then it began in earnest, like October,
And it didn't take very long to discover
That the body is a child, or a house pet
And that house pets need to be trained; children
Aren't born to listen, they have to be taught.
And so you learned to twist in and out of yourself
Like a blanket hung up to dry, and you learned
To wait, to carve your body into empty spaces.
This training had to be done with real seriousness
Like living, like a chipmunk going around and around
In his cage, or a ferris wheel that keeps going up and up and
Even further up, and then slides weightlessly down.
And you begin to understand that the ferris wheel
Is revolving inside of us, and that even chipmunks
Have dignity. Dignity and great courage. But then
One night someone clapped at the wrong moment, loudly,
Like a rifle going accidentally off, and this
Hurts you very much, you thought back to the ducks,
Though somehow you managed to steady yourself
In the dark; you still didn't fall into the stands.
For years you thought of the ugliness of that applause
And of the endless monotony of your small, turning wheel,
But then one morning it begins to bloom inside of you
Almost casually, as offhanded as an opinion
Although, like an opinion, it gets steadier and steadier,
Like a drunk eventually it begins to sober,
Nurturing on itself as a seed tossed casually
Into an iron pot in an abandoned greenhouse in winter
Only to peek out years later from its colorless vine
As a rose; a scrawny, pink, purplish, ugly, little
Short-stemmed rose blossoming inside of you.
And suddenly you realize: This is hell. And it is.
It really is. And then you think: I have already
Lived through it. And perhaps that's true also.
And then you discover that it doesn't even matter.
And this is amazing. Because you still
Have to go on danging over the starless nets and
Under the nets of stars, climbing over dazed watery crowds
With your chipmunk's passion for movement, for circles.
And now whenever someone is repelled by your body
You think of the unspeakable reservoirs of the mind,
The silt, and the way a lake can continue rippling
Long after the last pebbles have finally disappeared.
Or how a vacancy rises up to surround the violent shock
Of a single rifle fired once on a pond in early winter.
Look, the ducks are sliding away from us toward the stars
Although the stars, millions of miles beyond, are already dead.
Sometimes when you stare up into their black, leafless vines
You can feel the awe, the silence and awe,
And the wind flapping against ropes and canvas sides.
Because you know now that whenever you move
There are whole centuries moving behind you.
Fossils cradle in your bones. The deepest oceans
Rise in your bird blood, yes, and you can already
Feel the distance in your lungs, the distance, and
The stillness spreading its blank wings inside you.
Here it is.
(Apparently "you" is him).
_________
The Acrobat
Perhaps it begins in silence, in silence and awe.
Because think of the way, as a child, you could stand
Under the stars, dry and leafless in the open tent
Thinking of nothing, I mean not thinking of anything
Because there was nothing to think about, knowing that soon
The acrobat would lean out of his marvelous skin
And throw himself into the empty spaces,
Letting the wind gnaw gently at his limbs
Tortured into new postures, exotic faraway places.
But not even anticipating or even expecting it yet
Because it was better to let it come at you
Suddenly, like a cold shock of winter rain, or
The black wing of a storm, the crowd's insanity!
How you despised the clowns with their clumsy vigilance
And warped, colorful faces, their mockingbird smiles,
Although you already knew that they, too, were
Part of the meaning, part of the circumstance, and
That being there under the booming lights and veined sky
Was enough, maybe it was even what you could expect,
Like those pale green sunsets marred by oil derricks.
It was enough. And it could not be changed.
Once, when I was still only an apprentice
I spilled out of an iron swing into some hay
And suddenly remembered watching hundreds of ducks
Startled out of a wintry New Hampshire pond
By a solitary old man wearing a fur hat and
Carrying a hunting rifle. Afterwards I discovered
That the rusty swing was faulty and that although
No one admitted to being present, the ringmaster's rifle
Had exploded in a tent near the back of a stream
Just as I was falling out of my double somersault.
And this proved that I had relived the experience
Almost exactly, and that the mind is really a beacon
Or else a chipmunk scurrying around on its wheel,
Where we keep going away from ourselves,
Going away and returning.
Now it is autumn.
The leaves are coming off the branches
In a solemn procession of oranges and bright reds,
Dim purples, and even a few speckled, late summer greens.
And you can still remember standing in the momentary dark
Watching his right foot curl casually over the rope
And then his other foot swung up like a rider
Into a stirrup, and then the long vertical climb
High into the lights. Where the platform was a
Sand dune, or a lighthouse, and the crowd
Was a watery blur, a colorful syrup of streamers
You despised. And then the spotlight began rising
Like the beacon, the wooden platform evaporated,
And he finally moved. Yes, you can still remember
How some were repelled and turned away; some thought
This was a spectacle and mistook his small, tattooed body
For a zoo animal; some actually started to tremble,
And a few began their long, disfiguring applause.
But for you he was always and only a man
Spreading out like wings against the dark canvas,
Squeezing in and out of his own body into reservoirs
Of awed silence. A man rippling above us like the wind.
But then it was over. There was clapping, perhaps an ovation
And his body was closer, bunched up like an insect's.
It no longer mattered, but you hated him then, hated
His muscular scraping against the floor. His smallness.
You hated him. And you wished you were dead.
But then it began in earnest, like October,
And it didn't take very long to discover
That the body is a child, or a house pet
And that house pets need to be trained; children
Aren't born to listen, they have to be taught.
And so you learned to twist in and out of yourself
Like a blanket hung up to dry, and you learned
To wait, to carve your body into empty spaces.
This training had to be done with real seriousness
Like living, like a chipmunk going around and around
In his cage, or a ferris wheel that keeps going up and up and
Even further up, and then slides weightlessly down.
And you begin to understand that the ferris wheel
Is revolving inside of us, and that even chipmunks
Have dignity. Dignity and great courage. But then
One night someone clapped at the wrong moment, loudly,
Like a rifle going accidentally off, and this
Hurts you very much, you thought back to the ducks,
Though somehow you managed to steady yourself
In the dark; you still didn't fall into the stands.
For years you thought of the ugliness of that applause
And of the endless monotony of your small, turning wheel,
But then one morning it begins to bloom inside of you
Almost casually, as offhanded as an opinion
Although, like an opinion, it gets steadier and steadier,
Like a drunk eventually it begins to sober,
Nurturing on itself as a seed tossed casually
Into an iron pot in an abandoned greenhouse in winter
Only to peek out years later from its colorless vine
As a rose; a scrawny, pink, purplish, ugly, little
Short-stemmed rose blossoming inside of you.
And suddenly you realize: This is hell. And it is.
It really is. And then you think: I have already
Lived through it. And perhaps that's true also.
And then you discover that it doesn't even matter.
And this is amazing. Because you still
Have to go on danging over the starless nets and
Under the nets of stars, climbing over dazed watery crowds
With your chipmunk's passion for movement, for circles.
And now whenever someone is repelled by your body
You think of the unspeakable reservoirs of the mind,
The silt, and the way a lake can continue rippling
Long after the last pebbles have finally disappeared.
Or how a vacancy rises up to surround the violent shock
Of a single rifle fired once on a pond in early winter.
Look, the ducks are sliding away from us toward the stars
Although the stars, millions of miles beyond, are already dead.
Sometimes when you stare up into their black, leafless vines
You can feel the awe, the silence and awe,
And the wind flapping against ropes and canvas sides.
Because you know now that whenever you move
There are whole centuries moving behind you.
Fossils cradle in your bones. The deepest oceans
Rise in your bird blood, yes, and you can already
Feel the distance in your lungs, the distance, and
The stillness spreading its blank wings inside you.
