For the Scribe Gar.Una of Uruk, 3,000 B. C. by David Wojahn

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend September 25, 2014   For the Scribe Gar.Una of Uruk, 3,000 B. C.   David Wojahn

—author of the earliest known signature That arrow & life were homonyms. That his name     Predates all others, incised sunbaked on a slab               Of Eupratian clay. Stylus a broken reed, though it Carries somehow the bedazzled opalescent mojo      Of transfiguration. The hand which holds it edges right               & reaching the margin circles back, right to left & east to west, boustrophedon, so that inscription       Is a form of weaving. What matters that the context                Is grain, is cattle & goat, chamber pot & sandal, Three & twenty spear-shafts hewn of cedar,       Flagons of unguents for the Temple Stores.                Enumerate, enumerate. Life & arrow, Our endless numbered days enfeathered       So to fly relentless in unpitying sun.                The one whom I loved is dead. The one Whom I loved is clay. Enumerate, enumerate,       Life & arrow. They are all gone now, the days                We shared. Gone eighteen years, six months, Seven days, eleven hours. & thus I open      The Major English Romantic Poets & keep vigil,                For her hand her hand lives on in concord Peerless with William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell      Decoded. So he took me thro’ a stable               (vision of materialism) and thro’ a church and down Into a church vault, at the end of which (Mill of Abstraction)      we did come to a cave; down the winding cavern              we groped our tedious way (Materialism = Locke + Newton).... I have also the Bible of Hell, which        the world shall have, whether they will or no. (Creation +                              Fall—the Angel embraces the Fire). Blue ink, green ink, pencil. Kentish Town, the ‘80s,       Window open & the pewter light ensilvering               The Heath. I watch the book upon her desk, pages A-tremble in the evening wind. She is out somewhere       In the leather jacket; she is out somewhere               To score. Blue ink, green ink, the Angel Embraces fire. Guide my hand now, o scribe,       Let me speak of her as though she might stand               Before me still. Enumerate, enumerate— The fog transfiguring, the chastening light. Guide my hand,      O scribe, so that I might see her from this window              We have hewn of stylus, of keyboard & character. Guide my hand so that she may walk below, emerging      Corporeal, parting the Tube Station crowd,               Jacket, worn boots, her scarf that is forged Of electrum, her scarf that is molten, her scarf      That is flame. Below me she stands. Arrow              & life. Guide my hand, o scribe. Instruct me to affix her here, that she may,      for a moment, raise her head toward me,             So that in this bless`ed gesture I may linger.              Copyright © 2014 by David Wojahn. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “This poem is partly an ode to the Sumerian scribe in the title, and also an elegy, occasioned by encountering margin notes in a book—written by a departed loved one. ‘Boustrophedon’ is defined in Webster’s as ‘the writing of alternate lines in opposite directions (as from left to right and from right to left).’” —David Wojahn   David Wojahn is the author of World Tree (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011), which won the Academy’s 2012 Lenore Marshall Prize. He teaches at Virginia Commonwealth University and in the MFA in Writing Program of Vermont College of Fine Arts. Most Recent Book by Wojahn   World Tree (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2011) "Primitive State [excerpt]" by Anselm Berrigan "Etymological Dirge" by Heather McHugh "?" by Randall Mann 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. 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