Poem-A-Day: Measurement Fable by Rusty Morrison

Guest Editor: Jane Hirshfield, Academy of American Poets Chancellor, January 7, 2014 Measurement Fable by Rusty Morrison     like water in water --George Bataille     Eggs, transparent and sometimes red-veined as insect wings, might be hidden in bark crevices   or a scatter of tawny leaves.   The distance between one gestation and the next, a pleat of the dress I wear carelessly,   as if I could sew myself another.   Practiced, my tendon-reflex where the tunnel narrows its halo into a noose. I trust   dexterity as a kind of nourishment, as I believe my own mother couldn't.   To own, beauty is the first lie of it, and brief as incident   is gray thistles turning silver in sunrise as if for my eyes alone.   I see you surround me, mother, measuring what my exoskeleton withstands. Embellishment   is thin. When the eye inside blinks, its bone-house splinters. No eye inside sky but an insect   drone can cause the entire horizon, seasonal as hindsight   which follows rain. No death   will stop measurement spiraling out, a long ribbon of salt I must choose repeatedly to cross.       Copyright © 2014 by Rusty Morrison. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem  "Michel Serres tells us that 'every form is draped in an infinity of adherences'; this has haunted my writing for some time. I've begun a series of poems in which I want to un-'drape' subjects that I have written about in the past, and release them from the upper layers of 'adherences' of meaning that I have previously explored. Beneath my understanding of these subjects, I am finding a sense of fable, and it is at that level I've begun to work. The writings of Bataille have been an excellent provocation for me in this work, as I seek a deeper, more disquieting relationship to the known, to what I perceive as the knowable and the unknowable." --Rusty Morrison       Rusty Morrison's Beyond the Chainlink will be published by Ahsahta Press this month. Her collection of poems the true keeps calm biding its story was the recipient of the Academy's James Laughlin Award in 2008. She is the copublisher of Omnidawn Press. Most Recent Book by Morrison Beyond the Chainlink (Ahsahta Press, 2014)                Poem-A-Day Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-A-Day  features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary  poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Browse the  Poem-A-Day Archive.      Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.

Forward this email This email was sent to prentice654.allsms@blogger.com by academy@poets.org |   Update Profile/Email Address | Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy. Academy of American Poets | 75 Maiden Lane | Suite 901 | New York | NY | 10038