On a somewhat lighter note, I want
to read the first three parts from a long poem in progress.
The poem as a whole is called "The Wish to Steal a Baby
in a 15-Year-Old Girl."
The title comes from a journal called Psychoanalytic Studies
of the Child.
And I have to confess I didn't read the article.
And so far in the poem, there's a girl
but there's not yet a baby, all right?
One section rhymes, more or less, and another section
is a very modified sestina so that there's some repetition
of words in it, as well.
"The Wish to Steal a Baby in a 15-Year-Old Girl."
"One.
The wish to steal a baby in a 15-year-old girl filled things
up, and you could watch them exhale it slowly--
thoughts and emotions.
The examination was made with care.
Then the moving men were careful,
and the furniture was scratched.
It came walling into the world.
What can you see out your window, young man?
I see trees in the wind at my window waving.
Imperfections in the glass make them wobble.
I see ivy on the outside wall at my window
looking ruffled and red.
Autumn embarrassed the ivy.
It flew on the helpful breeze in the open window
and lay there mumbling on the floor.
He picked it up in pieces and put it in a bowl.
The pieces didn't fit.
They settled down some, though.
To whom do these leaves belong, young man?
In a state of nature, to anyone who should happen by and pick
them up; thereafter to him who should cultivate them
for his reasonable use.
They placed the bowl very close to the open window
so the leaves could discuss it among themselves.
It learned its lesson and quieted passion.
Two.
The wish to steal a baby in a 15-year-old girl filled things
up, and you could watch them exhale it slowly--
thoughts and emotions.
The examination was made like a bed
in which she was put to sleep.
She would lie where they placed her
in moonlight to keep the thinking awake,
which heard murmured voices.
The night drew closer in congregations,
whispering somebody else's passions.
Through branches, forms drifted and caught.
Below her, the words were making their choices
like places in thinking where things disappear.
Her fingers played over the sheet
like a hem of a gown of a mother who put her to sleep.
First, she would see them.
Next, she would be them.
If she could sleep, she might dream and free them.
If she could not, they would fill up her thought,
mumbling like leaves in a living room bowl which whispered
and breathed like a soul.
She wanted to howl so that someone could hear.
The night perched, watching her like an owl.
Was no one near?
The night was near and could either increase or quiet
her fear.
She fingered the hem and thought she was them.
Three.
The wish to steal a baby in a 15-year-old girl
filled things up, and you could watch them exhale it slowly.
Thoughts and emotions pulsed, then
hovered like the leaves, which beat
in wind against the window.
If they blew into the room, you would place them in a bowl.
There was no bowl.
Your hands waved like branches as you ran to the open window.
Already, the room was streaming with leaves,
their shapes and colors tangled with thoughts and emotions.
In panic, you tried to sort and separate them.
It was like an examination in which the questions filled you
with fear, the answer was kept in the dark,
and you had been placed in a bed and told to sleep.
You clutched at sleep like the hem
of the last glimmer of daylight trailed into a lesson which
deepened and made you weep.
Thoughts and emotions swirled in the mind
like leaves in an enormous bowl.
You were examined by fear, and night
was the lesson in which even a sleeping child would weep
and clutch at the hem of a disappearing gown."