Bref Double en Avion1 Reasons to follow the heart
are many and various: my heart's fist
is fragile and demanding, full of longing
to find the center, like any artist.
The throbbing organ forgets about needing
the good and daily, and jumping up and down
flaps its chambers to a haunting song--
the loveliest song, it swears, it has ever known.
Its pure joy is the most seductive of all
as, dressed in luminous clothes, it heads to town.
My heart wakes up my mind, whose spacious hall
is empty except for just one glittering word--
the perfect word to describe that glorious fall:
love plunging through space. Verses overheard
play in the drum-organ's ear and its pulse of a smile
grows wide dancing to the absurd.
2 Reasons not to follow the heart
are many and various: my heart is fragile
and demanding, full of longing still
and quick to bruise or find everything futile
It leaves the good and daily out on the sill
and cracks the brittle window of what is dear,
blinding itself through stubborn force of will
to what might stay and what might disappear.
This heart's a whiner, moaner, carry-on-er,
wandering through storms like a weary Lear;
it steals peace of mind and thumbs its nose at honor
and when it's called on its unreliable ways
it wails and falls about like a prima donna.
Seductive it's true, my heart can sometimes amaze
with its acrobatic leaps and its silver tongue,
but beware the stroboscope of its flashy gaze.
In dreams I fly between great chunks of brick--
office buildings with thousands of windows that glint
as my jumbo jet looks for a way to go,
wingtips just missing drainpipe and window washer.
Sometimes, though, it's a narrow forest road.
On each side hemlock and spruce stands tall and thick;
the plane drops low, then revs and lifts its nose,
rattling between the trees like a young kingfisher.
No dream, I'm wide awake at San Diego--
coming in to land en route to Baja.
I've eaten the pretzels, am sucking on a mint
when I glance out the window. Heart drops. Vertigo.
Skyscrapers far too close--a magic trick?
I see people working. I dreamed them two days ago.
http://www.mezzocammin.com/iambic.php?vol=2014&iss=1&cat=poetry&page=barringtonJudith Barrington has published three poetry collections, most recently Horses and the Human Soul and two chapbooks: Postcard from the Bottom of the Sea and Lost Lands (winner of the Robin Becker Chapbook Award). She was the winner of the 2012 Gregory O’Donoghue Poetry Prize (Cork International Poetry Festival), and her memoir, Lifesaving won the Lambda Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN/Martha Albrand Award. She has been on the faculty of the MFA program at the University of Alaska, and teaches classes and workshops in the USA, England and The Almassera, Spain: www.judithbarrington.com
http://www.judithbarrington.com/interviews/interview-eclectica.html
Stephanie Doty
Women’s Issues Matter
July 27, 2014
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