Monday, November 16, 2020

1056. From Here To There - David Wagoner

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Though you can see in the distance, outlined precisely

With speechless clarity, the place you must go,

The problem remains

Judging how far away you are and getting there safely.

Distant objects often seem close at hand

When looked at grimly.

But between you and those broken hills (so sharply in focus

You have to believe in them with all your senses)

Lies a host of mirages:

Water put out like fire, the shimmer of flying islands,

The unbalancing act of mountains upside down

Passing through too much air,

Light shifts, fidgets, and veers in ways clearly beyond you,

Confusing its weights and measures with your own

Which are far simpler:

A man on foot can suffer only one guiding principle

Next to his shadow: One Damm Thing After Another,

Meaning his substance

In the shape of his footsoles against the unyielding ground.

When you take a step, whatever you ask to bear you

Is bearing your life:

Sound earth may rest on hollow earth, and stones too solid

To budge in one direction may be ready

To gather no moss

With you, end over end, in another. You’ve been foolhardy

Enough already to make this slewfooted journey

Through a place without pathways

Where looking back seems a disheartening as relearning

The whole mad lay of the land by heart

After an earthquake.

At last, watching your step, having shrugged off most illusions,

And stumbling close enough to rap your knuckles

Against the reality

Of those unlikely rocks you’ve stared at through thick and thin

Air and the dumb-shows of light, your hope should be,

As a hardened traveller,

Not to see your trembling hands passing through cloud-stuff, 

Some flimsy mock-up of a world spun out of vapor.


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