Aging – Page 2 – BEFORE I FORGET

22/12/201627/12/2016

Before the Scalpel

Passing through
the eye of a needle,
I’ve divested myself.

Don’t wait. Use me.

I’ve pared down.
I’ve cut my hair.
I’m clean in the night.

***

As topical as topical can be, these lines have been re-purposed from the passage below by the Congolese poet Tchicaya U’Tamsi, on whom I wrote my MA thesis in 1971. Thus began my life-long study of and fascination with the African literary intelligentzia.

Ne tardez pas
je peux être utile
J’ai déjà refait mes ongles
rasé ma tête
je suis propre devant la nuit

(Épitomé, p 78)

27/04/201511/05/2015

Chaparral Sunset

Day sheds its sheath of light,
the skin of things a wisp,
a wreath, every blade clinging
to the flare once pulsing within.

As shadows climb the hill,
the heavens spin anew.
Caught in their swivel,
a luminous planet or two.

Below thrive thistle, laurel, sage,
manzanita, sumac and rue.
Breeze brushes their gilded
shafts. The dessicated bristles

of their involuted bracts
leave audible scratches
on the silken shroud
of evening’s amber whisper.

***
Even I didn’t realize what this poem was about until I had to read it over a few times to proof it. In The Skin of Things. This is, it has turned out, the title poem of that sequence.