Wednesday, March 31, 2010

What we think, what we choose

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Graces Fall

We begin so high, the slow climb to summits
we were born to rediscover and attain. Once
arrived, we sample the air, test vapors for their
vintage, savor subtle differences between rarified
blues, note the absence of angels this far up.

We struggle to survive until we come to
understand this was never meant to be a struggle.
We learn to sit, to be still in such atmospheres,
to move with purpose rather than persistence,
refract what elements would seek to suit us.

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This is all meant for the body, for spaces
between atoms where the ages thrive to
bring us to some place we might call home.
What we think, what we choose to believe,
has so very little to do with any of it.

This is the worn path of prophets and
sailors, footprints left in sand and foam
that lead the way toward a destination that
is but a traverse through commencement.
This is where what we call grace falls.

Joseph Gallo
March 24, 2010


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4 Comments:

Blogger Unknown parried...

Where did I read, just in the past few days, that we are made to be destroyed. Fuel for the engine. Ergo, grace in brevity.

I can't swim. ... Are you crazy? The fall will probably kill you.

April 02, 2010 10:26 PM  
Blogger Joseph Gallo parried...

Hey Sundance, don't let that stop you from jumping anyway. One way or the other---life gets you. ;-)

Brings to mind one of the best titles for a book of poems: I Praise My Destroyer by Diane Ackerman. Here's an excerpt:

I praise life's bright catastrophes,
and all the ceremonies of grief.
I praise our real estate - a shadow and a grave.
I praise my destroyer,
and will continue praising
until hours run like mercury
through my fingers, hope flares a final time
into the last throes of innocence,
and all the coins of sense are spent.

April 04, 2010 8:10 AM  
Blogger Unknown parried...

Very interesting. Diane reminds me a little of me. Poor thing. J/K, it's excellent.

April 04, 2010 9:03 AM  
Blogger Joseph Gallo parried...

Diane reminds me of you, too. And of me. Of all of us who move fast enough to come still and listen with our eyes; read with our ears; sing in our silence.

You sent me this morning on a knight-errant prambling the wanderless aisles of the innernets looking for the complete poem only to find more and more of Ackerman's singular and probing work.

Between her and Sappho, rich women steeped in richer mornings such as this one here on the rancho, I've written two new pieces prompted by immersion into such things.

I love when that happens. :-)

So thanks, Kyle.

April 04, 2010 9:22 AM  

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