The Loon
We are all hunted
and on all fours.
He who stood
and She who lay.
Oh,
yes.
And then the world began.
I have no use for the ancient dream
of father and mother
of one and another.
I have no use for an order
whose crown, whose border
is the stentorian father
on his hind legs
holding his quiver
and mother
watching us move
her children, before their father
mostly a bother.
We are all hunted
and on all fours.
So, might we think
that the inexplicable
funneling whirl
of the loon
that unmasking
of summer
that exposure
to ourselves
of our vole duration lives
would be just what we see
when she is swallowed
by the lake
voluntarily
and we wait
floating here
for her shoulder
for her head
her voice
her flying away
she hatched on the still surface
anguish
anguish
skyward beauty.
-Jeremy Nathan Marks
Jeremy Nathan Marks
oh, good Lord, Jeremy. This is masterful. I must reblog. Must.
I agree with Susan, and read it a few times, though not always sequentially from top to bottom or from the start to the end. Bravo!
If you don’t mind, Jeremy, I have a request or suggestion that the line spacing be substantially reduced, since your unusually large spacing has resulted in only a small portion of these poems being visible on screen at any time. I have had to resort to considerable vertical scrolling in both directions when reading your longer poems. Somehow, I felt and detected that the scrolling has/had unnecessarily interfered with my appreciation of your poems. Thanks.
I’m glad you liked the poem.:-)
I wish I could change the spacing, but I can’t figure out how to make the wordpress site let me writing in single spaces. Unless there is an option which exists that I am unaware of, I don’t know how to change this.
Do you leave a blank line between two consecutive lines? Perhaps the solution is as simple as not leaving a blank line between two lines except between two stanzas. Will that work?
Reblogged this on Susan Daniels Poetry and commented:
Jeremy. My new favorite.
Thank you, Susan. As I always tell you, I consider it a special honor when you like and or reblog my work.
oh, Jeremy, thank you & likewise!
I’ve tried that and unfortunately it does not work.
That is very odd indeed! Anybody would wonder why it works in the comment boxes but not in the posts, assuming that there is really not a blank line between two consecutive lines.
Did you or someone change something in the template or theme (inadvertently)?
It has always worked that way for poetry so I have no idea.
I must confess, I am in drunkeness, but not of the worst type, and this poem took me
onto waves, very felt, ebb and tide, beautiful
Thank you
My pleasure.
really interesting proigression in this…and it darts back forth between menace (the hunting) and the beauty of the loon, then the anguish…beauty….very nicely done…
This is beautiful. To me, it feels like a journey from creation through evolution to death and rebirth, an entire history of life. And it does it all with such a lovely flow.
Thank you very much, Patti. I am really pleased that the poem offers you this. I find that “flow” is often one of the more challenging aspects of poetry for me, so when it works I am especially happy to hear it.
Thank you for reading my piece.
Powerful
Pingback: The Loon | edge of frog
A link to this poem can now be found at ‘edge of frog’
http://edgeoffrog.wordpress.com/
Thank you.