Because I haven’t praised a poet 
 in months
 I wander along the arcs
 of his poetic digressions
 under Winter Stars, each
 
 contending for the moon’s wide eye—
 I see Lorca and Neruda, and Rilke twinkling
 on the fringe of his Wreckage 
 tailored images and revolutions
 of a surreal afterlife, born
 the year of my birth, wailing
 lungs flare. In his absence
 
 I live, or begin to.
 Thin lines of poetry transcend, laterally
 in time, it passes my eyes across his work,
 and I contemplate how
 a thread of an idea, dangling 
 from a bare Cherry bough, blossoms 

in winter in Japan,
 if I take you 
 there,
 down some 
 winding 
   n
    a
     r
    r
   o
 w
 sentence, 
 following 
 Matsuo Bãsho’s lingering shadow
 
     through an alley, 
  within a fishing village,
    inside a small town
  within the wrapped present
      that is Japan.
 
 I can smell Levis on my page.
 
 Alone. I remember
 gazing into the leaves, like tea
 brewing 
 all the while in me
 like his elegy—
             ever against the current
             of presumption—
 bridle in hand
 he strolled into nowhere’s garden.
 
 And the applause fluttered 
 inside me, wild butterfly
 wings flickering to fault lines
 in Fresno or someplace less romantic:
 	some grass along a ditch
 he lays his head upon
 and daydreams poems
 in sentences that resemble
 ravines
 or the occasional   b r i d g e  draped over them
 with a plank or two    open,   like eyes   

03/17/2006

Author's Note: Inspired by: The Spirit Says, You are Nothing: (the first Levis poem I ever read). Much of the italics in this piece are derived from his book titles, an occational line that fit the context, etc...I hope you enjoy, and if you get a chance--READ HIM!

Below is an EXCERPT from the poem I mentioned above:

Because you haven't praised anything in months ,
You walk down to the river and study one ripple
Above a dead tree
Until almost dark enough
For the moon to whiten it,
But it does not,
And so you put your hand out,
Palm open,
And then you feel, or you begin to feel,
A thin line of ants hesitate
Before running over it,
And you think how
The thread of worry running through a human voice
Halts when a syllable freezes, then goes on,
Alone. You remember
Overhearing two voices speak softly
In a motel room ...

Posted on 03/17/2006
Copyright © 2025 Julie Adams