the blog as mask • (halloween suite)

THE POEM AS MASK

Orpheus

When I wrote of the women in their dances and wildness,
it was a mask,

on their mountain, gold-hunting, singing, in orgy,
it was a mask;
when I wrote of the god,
fragmented, exiled from himself, his life, the love
gone down with song,
it was myself, split open, unable to speak, in exile from myself.

There is no mountain, there is no god, there is memory
of my torn life, myself split open in sleep, the rescued child
beside me among the doctors, and a word
of rescue from the great eyes.

No more masks!
No more mythologies!

Now, for the first time,
the god lifts his hand,
the fragments join in me with their own music.

Muriel Rukeyser

From Muriel Rukeyser:
Selected Poems by Muriel Rukeyser
Copyright © 2004 by William Rukeyser.

how in youth we create identities, or we wait for them to be revealed to us. we shop for them in things, in clothing, in reflections in store windows.

at last the search is done and we have our story. now if only we can live up to it.

then one day we are old and realize that we never found a thing, we just found masks to suit a daily life, and then became them.

when we are old, we realize our own folly.

naked

AUGUST METEOR SHOWER

While they're here I hold them
like my breath.
They deepen the sky
like blood in my body,
I'm glad to offer







my body like this -- a small craft
over fields of water, where light can fall, be lost, be caught,
be held.
I'm naked in my chair,
facing the window.





If I were outside I'd want to look up
and see someone naked in every window.

I think we need
the difficult river, we need the absence of tenderness
so love can come like shooting stars
if it comes.

Ruth L. Schwartz







from Dear Good Naked Morning C 2005 Ruth L. Schwartz