"Blur" by H. L. Hix

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend August 29, 2018   Blur   H. L. Hix

Turns out lots of lines prove blurry I once thought sharp. Some blur from further away, some from closer in. Plant/animal, for instance. On which side, and why, the sessile polyps, corals and sea anemones? Same problem saying why my self must be internal.   Where do I see those finches glinting at the feeder? To experience the is-ness of what is, I'd need to locate the here-ness of what's here. Or be located by it. Or share location with it. There's a line I want to blur: between my senses   and my self. And another: between my senses and the world. That anemone looks more like a lily than an appaloosa. Looks, and acts. I feel that fizz of finches sparkle on my tongue, the back of my throat. I don't say these words until I hear them. My voice   visits. Is visitation. I would choose the role of visitor over visited, if I got to choose. Those finches trill and warble in sequences of phrases. I can tell there's pattern, but not what the pattern is. I can say I hear them (I do hear them) in my sleep,   but I can't say what that means. Their twitters and chirps start early, before I wake. I can say they chatter all day (they do), when I'm hearing them and when I'm not, but I can't say how I know that. The back of my hand always feels as if it's just been lightly touched.                Copyright © 2018 H. L. Hix. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   "'Blur' is from a sequence of poems that draw on the earth sciences, each poem provoked by a landmark book or paper. The stanzas in the poems end with a word from one sentence in the related text; in 'Blur' the sentence is from Aristotle's History of Animals: 'As to the parts internal and external that all animals are furnished withal, and further as to the senses, to voice, and sleep, and the duality of sex, all these topics have now been touched upon.' Our having entered the 'Anthropocene'—an era in which human activity is affecting the planetary ecosystem to a greater degree than ever before—makes it urgent that the various languages we use to understand ourselves and our world be kept in contact with one another. Putting the languages of science and of poetry in contact moves us toward a healthier, more mutually beneficial 'dialogue' between humanity and our natural environment." —H. L. Hix   H. L. Hix is the author of Rain Inscription (Etruscan Press, 2017), and American Anger (Etruscan Press, 2016). He teaches in the low-residency MFA program at Fairleigh Dickinson University and lives in Laramie, Wyoming.   Photo credit: Nancy M. Stuart Poetry by Hix   Rain Inscription (Etruscan Press, 2017) "For Louis Pasteur" by Edgar Bowers "Giraffes" by Kimiko Hahn "Spine to Spin, Spoke to Speak" by Andrew Joron August Guest Editor: Evie Shockley   Thanks to Evie Shockley, author of semiautomatic (Wesleyan University Press, 2017), who curated Poem-a-Day this month. Read more about Shockley and our guest editors for the year. Help Support Poem-a-Day   If you value Poem-a-Day, please consider a monthly donation or one-time gift to help make it possible. Poem-a-Day is the only digital series publishing new, previously unpublished work by today's poets each weekday morning. The free series, which also features a curated selection of classic poems on weekends, reaches 450,000+ readers daily. Thank you! 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

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