Poem Beginning with a Line by Rumi
Alicia Ostriker
for Tess O'Dwyer
"Only those who have felt the knife can understand the wound"
And all the same there are days when to walk a city
--New York, London, Prague--is like feeling completely healed,
With satisfying presents raining down, sheets and squares
Of windowglass, countless apartment and car windows,
Storewindows, objects to buy,
Pebbled traffic lights bouncing from red to green
Like hot deep eyes of boyfriends. Buses and taxis,
Signs and symbols, food, stone on stone
Churches, garbage, clothing and hats,
Steam puffing from grates
Heels striking sidewalk,
Rectangles between buildings a sharp blue on the best days,
Even playgrounds and green parks, and park benches
And wineglass elms, spots of complete happiness
And pride, salary that you haven't earned.
Confess there exist days when you want to do nothing
But walk for miles of streets, not buying but looking,
Looking and blessing, and if they give you a river
To remind you still more fully of death and life,
You'll note the ferries, the laboring barges, the bridges
And the speedboats. A material density
Whipped by energy. Here in the windy bay
A boatload of fishermen, maybe Italian,
Efficiently heave up ponderous netfuls
Of squirming bream together with eels,
Nipples and phalluses streaming
From the brine and now the sun is
Descending burning orange, the flaming
Blankets of clouds gathering to swallow it.
Your body leans against a railing,
Your eyes are like arms pulling the sensations in,
Your heart is completely pierced.
The orange sun lights the indifferent waves
The wooden boat rocks, surrounded by ocean
All is in fact natural calm and passionless
Except the tugging sailors, the frantic fish--
"O always moving brine upon which we ride
O setting tremendous sun
O stinging cold
O edge of city
O slapping water and spume caught by the air."
