Pilgrimage
I do not know who I am, but I do know
I am not the red winged blackbird scaling the tall grass near the road
or the snail slug attached to the undergrowth of a brick.
Nor am I the rat dependent on a prisoner for care.
Hard and fast I find myself, a garden gate swinging open unexpectedly,
no wind through the leaves, no breeze across the dandelions, not even breath.
Can I be the lover’s kiss? The soft caress? One finger focused on another’s palm?
The brand new lens allowing the brilliance of brand new sight?
Perhaps I am only the apology, the insecure sorry bent and breaking,
the I-have-already-apologized-for-that — can’t you let it go? —
the red winged blackbird hoping to lift its body above the reeds,
the snail slug married to its one brick terrain,
the rat entering the concrete floor hungry, hopeful, anticipating home.
| Copyright © 2013, 2023 by Michael H. Brownstein Michael H. Brownstein’s volumes of poetry, A Slipknot Into Somewhere Else and How Do We Create Love?, were published by Cholla Needles Press in 2018 & 2019, respectively. |
Reading this poem today brings to mind and puts me in the mood of T. S. Eliot’s “Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” which is a lot longer than I remember, and a good deal longer than this fairly long excerpt:
ReplyDeleteAnd indeed there will be time
For the yellow smoke that slides along the street,
Rubbing its back upon the window-panes;
There will be time, there will be time
To prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet;
There will be time to murder and create,
And time for all the works and days of hands
That lift and drop a question on your plate;
Time for you and time for me,
And time yet for a hundred indecisions,
And for a hundred visions and revisions,
Before the taking of a toast and tea.
What a beautiful poem. I love the images, the red-winged blackbird especially. I wrote a poem about them once. The call of these birds is so insistent. It seems to cultivate both presence and otherness. The way you have recalled some of the images at the end of this poem, but in a changed perspective, is quite moving. It made me read the poem several times. Thank you for this.
ReplyDeleteOne of my many favorites, Michael. Looking forward to the whole book being available!
ReplyDeleteThank you both for your most gracious comments.
ReplyDeleteNever thought about putting the book out again. Guess I can start thinking about it. By the way, because i suddenly have limited access to a computer, I'm the anonymous commenter above--but I think everyone sort of already knew that.
ReplyDeleteYes, we knew it was you. The sort of boilerplate thank-you phrasing, “Thank you … for your most gracious comments,” sounds trademark MHB!
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