and pine. One
can dismiss
a whisper's
revelations
and go on as
before as if
everything were
perfectly fine.
One does. One
loses wonder
among stores
of things.
One can even miss
the basso boom
of the ocean's
rumpus room
and its rhythm.
A man can leave
this earth
and take nothing
—not even
longing—along
with him.
from The New Yorker (May 12, 2008)
ReplyDelete(re:) One Everything ... I think this one and yesterday's (The Hour Glass) are a nice pair to consider. see also: Elizabeth Bishop's One Art.
Each suggests that with any movement there is loss. "One can miss mountains": anything can be over-looked, and everything is lost. However, moving forward is apparently our only option - always toward nothing and endlessly away from everything else. As soon as anything is found, like a poem, so is its cost. In the fewest number of words (Goethe's): "Everything near becomes distant." So it's not only poetry, it's physics, the "moral" being, if there is one: don't be a moron; (move sensibly).