Separation
Titian felt the old yearning in his bones—
the need that hurtles a cliff face into sea,
a song so sweet that stone erodes to sand.
Someone drew the first line
and called it separation,
carved out the shape of man but forgot
about the impossibility of entry.
Maybe this is the ancient and familiar longing
that drives man to define the world,
to name each thing he touches—
the spoken separation giving him
a word to cry into the night when lines
begin to overtake him.
And when the call and echo is not enough,
doesn’t that man set out into a world
that is not a world—into a landscape colored
by the hues of his loose dreaming?
The nature around him that wants only to be
with itself is filled by his calling—
each unfirm aspect is lit by his need
for the far shore and soft step.
The warp and weft of the land
reshaped to fit his desire.
These mountains could hide Shangri La.
They could be a woman soft with sleep—
the neck at least, the veins another landscape.
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Okay, a few things:
ReplyDelete- Who is Titian? Is this an allusion to some story? I'm too lazy to google. Knowing my luck it's probably better for me to google since it will probably help me understand the poem better. But you said you need comments before 3 and I felt like I should give you some now now now.
- Is the someone supposed to be indented like that? I like how it looks, just checking to make sure it wasn't an accident
- "Someone drew the first line
and called it separation," are great lines.
- I'm not sure how I feel about "These mountains" being at the end now. Maybe it's because I already saw it at the beginning of the first draft, but I have a bias now. I don't think this should be at the end...Maybe in the middle...Or maybe it needs something after it ... I just don't know how I feel about it completing the poem.
Oh God I am so tired I'll try to give more feedback later right now I need to get out of work and sleep
Let me try to answer some of these things so your next comment will be easier...
ReplyDelete- Titian was a Renaissance painter. What I'm alluding to here is a debate between Renaissance artists who value line (Michelangelo, Raphael) and those who value color (Titian). The former camp thought that planning out paintings beforehand with a line drawing was ideal because it showed foresight, logic, etc. The latter thought that just using paint directly on canvas showed spontaneity and true art.
- And "someone" is supposed to be indented like that
- And the "these mountains" sounds weird at the end to me too, but I wanted to try it out