Dispatch #163
The Work
The Work
Summer is a ritual of endurance. The way rain rewinds into haze no color cuts through. Even the tiger lilies surrounding the supermarket parking lot are washed out, mute. Today’s forecast: suffocation. You have to strain to catch the signal that ignites the voice flowering beyond the brain — a language you hardly know as your own, but it is yours. You stand outside the poem, tend to its edges. Worry the seams. Keep it from collapsing. This is the work you’ve been given. A power line in the fog, sloping toward infinity.
Magnificent
Another masterpiece! I'm new to Joseph's poetry and am so glad to have found his work. I read this poem after "suffocating" for a couple of hours in the Southeast Texas heat doing yard work--a very nice reward :) I was going to note my favorite lines here, but realized that I would be quoting most of the poem. I have to say, though, that "voice flowering beyond the brain" is brilliant!