Poem-A-Day: D. A. Powell, To Last

	August 8, 2012 Today's poem is copyright © 2012 by D. A. Powell. Used with permission of the author. More from this author Other Powell Poems Abandonment Under the Walnut Tree corydon & alexis, redux Hustlers with Bad Timing Useless Landscape [the cocktail hour finally arrives: whether ending a day at the office] You can unsubscribe from our Poem-A-Day emails at at anytime—either completely, or until next April. Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane Suite 901 New York, NY 10038 212-274-0343 academy@poets.org		To Last by D. A. Powell I have had to learn the simplest things last. Which made for difficulties... —Charles Olson We know from accounts of the judgment of Paris how Love took first: the apple burnished by—it turns out—her own husband, working the bellows, forging to Discord's specifications, her need to break the spaghetti strands of marriage, her undiluted vitriol, that oversaw his flux and foundry, guided the sparking hammer to its urgent deed. Spoils of war. Power, undeterred and wily as it always is, the figural eye and its agency, took gladly the second chair, from which advantage machinations could be seen. Advised, conferred, deployed the second wave of ships, provided mercenary aid to every side and fanned the air, and made her counsel with all sides, supporting every one and none, out-waiting tides. If we believe the Greeks, the spokes of Fortune's wheel in constant turn would allow the last to be the first—beatitudes bestowed upon the losing side, a draught of time in which the wily ones, by their equine portage made the mind the victor over Love's inconstancy and strife, and, over brute acts, gave thought dominion in a golden age. But that's just myth. Wisdom, you are the last to whom I turn. Not for your spear, fashioned in that same fire as all bright jealous objects of desire. But for your shield. Protect the least of us. Or lift me from this battlefield, and take me home. Share Digg StumbleUpon Facebook E-mail to Friend