[New-Poetry] Backwards poetry

[David Graham]

Is this the one?

Remembering Fire
 
Almost as though the eggs run and leap back into their shells
And the shells seal behind them, and the willows call back their driftwood,
And the oceans move predictably into deltas, into the hidden oubliettes in
the sides of mountains,
 
And all the emptied bottles are filled, and, flake by flake, the snow rises
out of the coal piles,
And the mothers cry out terribly as the children enter their bodies
And the freeway to Birmingham is peeled off the scar tissue of fields,
 
The way it occurs to me, the last thing first, never as in life,
The unexpected rush, but this time I stand on the cold hill and watch
Fire ripen from the seedbed of ashes, from the maze of tortured glass,
 
Molten nails and hinges, the flames lift each plank into place
And the walls resume their high standing, the many walls, and the rafters
Float upward, the ceiling and roof, smoke ribbons into the wet cushions
 
And my father hurries back through the front door with the box
Of important papers, carrying as much as he can save,
All of his deeds and policies, the clock, the few pieces of silver;
 
He places me in the shape of my own body in the feather mattress
And I go down into the soft wings, the mute and impalpable country
Of sheep holding all of this back, drifting toward the unborn.
 
--Rodney Jones.  The Unborn, Atlantic Monthly Press, 1985.



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====================================================
David Graham
grahamd at ripon.edu
Home Page:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/About%20Me.html

Poetry Library:
http://web.mac.com/drjazz/iWeb/Site/DGPoLibrary.html
====================================================



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