Saturday, September 22, 2007

33. A VIOLENT WOMAN IN A VIOLENT DAY

From the Archives

(March 2005) I just spent the most wonderful hour doing karate catas this morning while looking out the window at the rain that is supposed to turn to snow as the day progresses. This does not bode well for the thirty or so flowers that are blooming in my yard.

Had two glasses of red wine while I worked on the Great American Novel last night. Haven’t had much to drink of late—a couple of beers watching basketball with pals maybe.

Either I didn’t drink enough water before bed or my body didn’t like the sulphites last night, because my head’s all stuffy today. Good reminder that drinking is, really, just putting poison into my body.

I’m better off sticking to water, but not sure I will.

So here’s a poem for this rainy day in a warring time:
THIS MORNING
by Muriel Rukeyser

Waking this morning,
a violent woman in the violent day
laughing.
Past the line of memory
along the long body of your life
in which move childhood, youth, your lifetime of touch,
eyes, lips, chest, belly, sex, legs, to the waves of the sheet.
I look past this little planet
on the city windowsill
to the tall towers’ bookshapes, crushed together in greed,
the river flashing flowing corroded,
the intricate harbor and the sea, the wars, the moon the planets
all who people space
in the sun visible invisible.
African violets in the light
breathing, in a breathing universe. I want strong peace, and delight,
the wild good.
I want to make my touch poems:
to find my morning, to find you entire
alive moving among the anti-touch people.

I say across the waves of the air to you:
today once more
I will try to be non-violent
one more day
this morning, waking this world away
in this violent day

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