“Beautiful Thinking” by Angie Estes

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend April 21, 2017   Beautiful Thinking   Angie Estes

Each morning, before the sun rises over the bay of Villefranche-sur-Mer                           on the Côte d'Azur, cruise ships drop anchor   so that motor launches from shore                           can nurse alongside. All afternoon we studied les structures où nous sommes l'objet, structures                             in which we are the object—le soleil me dérange, le Côte d'Azur nous manque—                           while the pompiers angled their Bombardiers   down to the sea, skimming its surface                           like pelicans and rising, filled with water to drop on inland, inaccessible                             wildfires. Once, a swimmer was found face down in a tree like the unfledged robin I saw                           flung to the ground, rowing   its pink shoulders as if in the middle                           of the butterfly stroke, rising a moment above water. Oiseau is the shortest word                             in French to use all five vowels: "the soul and tie of every word," which Dante named                           auieo. All through December, a ladybug circles   high around the kitchen walls looking for                           spring, the way we search for a word that will hold all vows and avowals: eunoia, Greek                             for "beautiful thinking," because the world's a magic slate, sleight of hand—now                           you see it, now you don't—not exactly   a slight, although in Elizabethan English, "nothing"                           was pronounced "noting." In the Bodleian Library at Oxford, letters of the alphabet hang                             from the ceiling like the teats of the wolf that suckled Romulus                           and Remus, but their alibi   keeps changing, slate gray like the sea's                           massage: You were more in me than I was in me. . . . You remained within while I                             went outside. Hard to say whether it was Augustine                           speaking to God or my mother   talking to me. Gulls ink the sky                           with view, while waves throw themselves on the mercy of the shore.            Copyright © 2017 Angie Estes. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "A few years ago, I lived in Villefranche-sur-Mer while taking an intensive course in French. From my apartment high on a cliff overlooking the bay, I could see cruise ships regularly anchor and ferry their passengers to shore, while from our classroom window we watched the French firefighter planes, which appeared to dive into the sea and rise up again into the sky." —Angie Estes   Angie Estes is the author of Enchantée (Oberlin College Press, 2013). She teaches in the MFA program at Ashland University and lives in Urbana, Illinois. Poetry by Estes   Enchantée (Oberlin College Press, 2013) "Ponies" by Spencer Reece "Photograph of People Dancing in France" by Leslie Adrienne Miller "Visits to St. Elizabeths" by Elizabeth Bishop 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. If you enjoy Poem-a-Day, please consider making a donation to help make it possible. 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.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038