You Are Here
Sharon Bryan published a collection of poems titled Flying Blind (1996, Sarabande Books) which contains about 44 poems with titles that go alphabetically from A to Y. If you listen to public radio, you may have heard Garrison Keillor read one of her poems from this collection, "Sweater Weather," during one of his daily "Writer's Almanac" readings. He's read it at least twice, actually. The first time he read it too slowly - it's a play on cliches that goes very fast. Ms. Bryan very nicely let him know it's meant to be rapid-fire, so he read it again at a later date.
This is the very last poem in the collection. It's about longing and discovery. It's about how language opens up whole new worlds once we have that gift. It's about being centered. To me it is a hopeful poem, and hope is a good thing, is it not? Now I am teasing you, so let's just get to the poem:
YOU ARE HERE
1
But the sign is over there,
its red arrow pointing
to X, one more letter
of the alphabet we use
to locate ourselves
in time and space --
there's plenty of room
for confusion, given the gap
between the map and the ground
we keep our feet on,
feeling our way,
listening for something
on the same wavelength,
for clues to our whereabouts
in words that come back to us
from the unknown, the ether
they've traveled through --
as if each syllable
were a question, a probe,
a toe in the water --
testing, testing -- a tentative
caress, a lover's hand
asking the body to yield
its secrets. asking the world
to speak our language.
2
You are here: that's the news
you wake up to each morning,
and of course it's everything,
the crucial fact, the story
of your life, the words
that open your eyes --
as they did when you learned
to speak and read,
when what had seemed to be nothing
turned out to be fog
and its lifting revealed
fragments of landscape,
an entire city of possibilities,
avenues of meaning to explore,
nooks and crannies of language
no broom sweeps clean...
it all comes down to the body
and what it gives rise to:
the spirit that hovers
just above it, reciting
an alphabet of longing.
by Sharon Bryan
This is the very last poem in the collection. It's about longing and discovery. It's about how language opens up whole new worlds once we have that gift. It's about being centered. To me it is a hopeful poem, and hope is a good thing, is it not? Now I am teasing you, so let's just get to the poem:
YOU ARE HERE
1
But the sign is over there,
its red arrow pointing
to X, one more letter
of the alphabet we use
to locate ourselves
in time and space --
there's plenty of room
for confusion, given the gap
between the map and the ground
we keep our feet on,
feeling our way,
listening for something
on the same wavelength,
for clues to our whereabouts
in words that come back to us
from the unknown, the ether
they've traveled through --
as if each syllable
were a question, a probe,
a toe in the water --
testing, testing -- a tentative
caress, a lover's hand
asking the body to yield
its secrets. asking the world
to speak our language.
2
You are here: that's the news
you wake up to each morning,
and of course it's everything,
the crucial fact, the story
of your life, the words
that open your eyes --
as they did when you learned
to speak and read,
when what had seemed to be nothing
turned out to be fog
and its lifting revealed
fragments of landscape,
an entire city of possibilities,
avenues of meaning to explore,
nooks and crannies of language
no broom sweeps clean...
it all comes down to the body
and what it gives rise to:
the spirit that hovers
just above it, reciting
an alphabet of longing.
by Sharon Bryan
posted by Elizabeth | 2:26 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home