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11/18/2002 entry: "Shock and poetry, edited"

I wanted to type in this poem from a book I recently bought. It's by this woman, Marge Piercy, and she's really good. I'm thoroughly enjoying this book.

How beautiful to be let
to stare into your eyes
from inches away, eyes of a shallow
sea with rock on the bottom
volcanic and jagged, rocks that slide
from the pass of scarlet poppies.

How beautiful to be permitted hours
of parentheses inside parentheses,
stories begun with so many details
they cannot end till three A.M.,
the talk stitching with fine silken
embroidery, the questioning with a child's
insistent thump, the angry mind
rooting up assumptions, the quick
pop to a different layer that leaves
me with my breath caught
in my throat like a kite in a tree.

How beautiful to hold you all
of a night, hour after hour,
tides of velvet splashing over,
under, pools of tawny feather,
flesh that holds sunlight
caught under the skin, to be given
you in me, to move with you, with
you out into the hot
rapids twisting and bobbing
till the river explodes.

How costly to be let into the halls
of your obsessions, buffeted by the moods
that shake you, the floors that
collapse in splinters, the stairways
that run backwards, the afternoons you will
do nothing but stare in th emirror
making faces, the doubts you swing,
bullwhips that threaten to
behead me, the times you walk through
me like fog, the times when you measure
each drop of affection like
an intravenous feeding solution.

What dance is this permitted
by the bearded gnomes of your fears,
two steps backward for each
step forward or is it
the other way round? Hopes
with rosy breast plumage still
build nests in my hair. Pain
puckers you yet I see the strength
there, the woman riding the crimson
lion through a field of flowers
and danger. My friend, of course
I will dance with you, how beautiful
that so much is permitted
when so much is feared.

That's so beautiful. I dunno, when I read it today it just really spoke to me. Such great imagery. But, in general, such a great set of emotions for a poem. I think my favorite stanza (am I using that right? I don't remember anymore.) is my favorite part of the poem.

I know I should work on some more things, since I am skipping two of my classes today. So I'll try my damnedest.