Sort of the two of them in a nutshell.
That's the right phrase.
[LAUGHTER]
I've always wanted to write a poem that
was perfectly organized so that at least that
could be said for it.
And in reading Aristotle's Poetics,
Aristotle enunciates this idea that works have a beginning,
a middle, and an end.
Now we know this.
It is part of the chlorine of the cultural pool
we swim in every day.
But for Aristotle, it's a new idea.
And he goes on about it at some length.
Surprisingly.
And if you want to feel really smart,
go back and read this part of the Poetics
because he says things like that after the middle is the end.
There's nothing before the beginning.
This is very new information [INAUDIBLE]..
Well, the upshot was I wrote a poem in three parts,
and it's called "Aristotle."
"This is the beginning.
Almost anything can happen here.
This is where you find the creation of light,
a fish wriggling on to land, the first word of Paradise
Lost on an empty page.
Think of an egg, the letter A, a woman
ironing on a bare stage as the heavy curtain rises.
This is the very beginning.
The first person narrator introduces himself,
tells us about his lineage.
The mezzo-soprano stands in the wings.
Here, the climbers are studying a map
or pulling on their long woolen socks.
This is early on, years before the ark, dawn.
The profile of an animal is being
smeared on the wall of a cave and you have not yet
learned to crawl.
This is the opening, the gambit, a pawn moving forward an inch.
This is your first night with her.
Your first night without her.
This is the first part where the wheels begin to turn
or the elevator begins its ascent
before the doors lurch apart.
This is the middle.
Things have had time to get complicated.
Messy, really.
Nothing is simple anymore.
Cities have sprouted up along the rivers teeming
with people at cross purposes, a million schemes,
a million wild looks.
Disappointment unshoulders his knapsack here
and pitches his ragged tent.
This is the sticky part where the plot congeals,
where the action suddenly reverses or swerves off
in some outrageous direction.
Here, the narrator devotes a long paragraph
to why Miriam does not want Edward's child.
Someone hides a letter under a pillow.
Here, the aria rises to a pitch, a song of betrayal salted
with revenge, and the climbing party
is stuck on a ledge halfway up the mountain.
This is the bridge, the painful modulation.
This is the thick of things.
So much is crowded into the middle.
The guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados,
Russian uniforms, noisy parties, lakeside kisses,
arguments heard through a wall.
Too much to name, too much to think about.
And this is the end.
The car running out of road, to the river
losing its name in an ocean.
The long nose of the photographed horse
touching the white electronic line.
This is the colophon, the last elephant in the parade,
the empty wheelchair, and pigeons floating down
in the evening.
Here, the stage is littered with bodies,
the narrator leads the characters back to their cells,
and the climbers are in their graves.
It is me hitting the period, and you closing the book.
It is Sylvia Plath in the kitchen,
and St. Clement with an anchor around his neck.
This is the final bit, thinning away to nothing.
This is the end according to Aristotle,
what we have all been waiting for,
what everything comes down to.
The destination we cannot help imagining,
a streak of light in the sky, a hat on a peg.
And outside the cabin, falling leaves."