Traveling North
by Bobbi Lurie
TRAVELING NORTH
Though you are dead now. Though I walk covered in dust through this strip mall in Iowa. I remember the collection of tendencies that led me here. The flat landscape. The blazing heat of cornfields. The landscape and body are one sensation.
Everywhere the books of atmospheric pressure. This book smells like miracles. That you were the chapter. That I was the slaughter. That sheep, my inheritance. That you were the shepherd who lead me here. Your hand reaching out to strike. Your hand reaching up to brush the hair from your brow. I never knew which. I never knew when. Your hand.
The cornfields are memories. You can not remember anything. The road is filled with dust haze. Your life is. Your death. I can not find it in this landscape. This collection of tendencies.
Though you are dead now. Though your hand would reach to strike. Though your hand would reach up to brush. The hair from your brow. Though light penetrates this. It is flat. It is frozen in self-image. I must resist the symbiotic wish. I must void the infantile condition. That region. This region. The atmospheric pressure in the vicinity of living.
Though you seemed invincible when your body moved. Though the way your hand. Would reach to your brow. Even though dead. Even though each wave of light penetrates. Even though only seems to slaughter. Sheep of inheritance.
Wake up at 4 a.m. Walk out naked to the porch. Skin shimmering. The way the word porch clings. The creaky swing. Dark lake of the body. What is always erased. The way your hand would reach to your brow and wipe your hair away. And it was always your hair. Always yours. And your face jutted into the landscape. This nowhere. This clicking sound of insects. Late summer.
Bobbi Lurie
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Author's Note
This prose poem was written while traveling through Iowa, the place of my father's birth. I wrote on small scraps of paper as I traveled through this unfamiliar yet strangely familiar landscape. The poem is a collage of these fragments constructed into a a single piece months later. It was previously published in Gulf Coast Magazine and will be included in my third poetry collection, Grief Suite, coming out in May, 2010.
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This is ominous and natural at the same time, with the beats of history alternating with the landscape.
Fave.
'The way the word porch clings. '
Indeed.
Thank you, Ann and Ajay.
so wonderful, this piece. it is close to internal monologue, or dialogue with aspects of oneself, the kind of writing with nerves before the page comes and linearizes everything, somehow. i also like the intimacy you convey, and the repetition, this repetition.
Dear Finnegan,
Thank you so much for what you write. I really appreciate your attention to these details.
Bobbi
Another wonderful piece, Bobbi. I esp. love the repetition - "Though your hand would reach to strike. Though your hand would reach up to brush." The pacing is just marvelous.
Outstanding work. The form is really strong.
Bobbie, i dont know why, but this makes me want to cry. Beautiful. I love the way you played with the words like playing with your thoughts. Trying them out in different ways. May I suggest you read my "What She Remembers"(Annie). I find them somehow related.
Dear Sara,
I read your beautiful story. You are right. They are related. It is something amazing.
Thank you so much for what you wrote re: my poem but there is more to this exchange due to your story.
Thank you also to Sam, Marcelle, Finnegan, Ajay, and of course Ann who brought me here.
I am very grateful to be here.
Thank you for your wonderful welcome.
with appreciation--
Bobbi
Thank you, Marcella, Finnegan, Sam and sara.
This is a beautiful poem, sad and reflective.
Dear Kathy,
Thank you very much for what you write.
I respect your intentions with this. In language quite fine, but it edges close to a border beyond which something threatens to despoil it. Maybe that's the danger of it. We look at ourselves and we forget sometimes that we are looking at others.
Or we look at others and forget we are looking at ourselves....?
Or ourselves ourselves, or others others? If there were more permutations we would go mad.
or we are mad and we are looking into a giant mirror which looks back at us?
But, Lucy looked into the "mirror" and saw Harpo. And he, looking back from his side, saw her. Luckily, there was no mirror.
You are a trapeze artist with words, Bobbi, and you work without a net. When I hit "the collection of tendencies" in the opener of TRAVELING, I went right on -- I guess that's called "flow". Your use of paragraph breaks gives the eye a place to rest and pause to contemplate what you just said. And that is a hellofa lot. Wonderful work.
Anda: I picked up a love for your father.
Dear Ramon,
Thank you for so much for your very generous review. I like the idea of being a trapeze artist without a net. Mostly I thank you for your second comment. You are the first to say this to me, to perceive this. Your review made my day. Thanks.
To stay independent in any of my comments, I never read other comments or the Author's Notes beforehand.
The little light bulb went off in the second paragraph: "That you were the shepherd who lead me here."
A very beautiful thought.
Dear Ramon,
Thank you. Yes. He was the shepherd who lead me here.
Thank you.
I like this very much. Very moving. Favorite lines: "This book smells like miracles," The atmospheric pressure in the vicinity of living."
Dear Matthew,
Thank you so much, especially for pointing out specific lines. I really appreciate it.
I very much like the way you put words together. It's interesting and often new. It involves the one reading like an exploration. You point out all the interesting things in a way that makes it more fun to pay attention.Very cool.
thank you, Darryl.
Just found this, and it is beautiful.
Excellent poetry! Good form, rhythm, and pace. I find it difficult to select specific quotes: the whole is more than the sum of its parts. Yet, if forced to choose, perhaps I would select the second and the last paragraph.
Well here's some synchronicity. I lived in Iowa for 2 years as a boy and I have been struggling to write about it - as recently as yesterday. Somehow you've managed to evoke for me some of its characteristics that haunt my memory -"The flat landscape. The blazing heat of cornfields." "Clicking sound of insects. Late summer." Thoroughly evocative. Ominous but starkly beautiful and lyrical. *