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POETRY AS PRESTIDIGITATION
Judith Deem Dupree
Yes, there are other things to think about
than words.
But consider how they may be jig-sawed
into new position, and
thereby recreate, perhaps, an eloquence
or bare simplicity, some
truth or grand illogic. A new world?
Poetry, perhaps, as prestidigitation?
Behind my eyes burn the effigies of hell
and all the fluent majesties of heaven.
But see, then I am bereft of words,
and fall on my knees
before the world, mute as fallen timber,
shriveled as an ancient seed, garbled
as a denizen of Babel.
Around and beyond me,
words begin - begin again and fall once more
in shattered images, reshaped.
I pluck them up, unlikely keeper and recycler
(as a magpie, eye cocked for another
likely glimmer, hoards our misplaced keys
and coins and tinsel) - and oh,
I lunge for all that I can reach, all that
my struggling neurons know to carry. All that
gathers up the light and holds it.
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