Sunday, October 5, 2014

Weekly Quick Collage: Expansion of Dreams

Expansion of Dreams




Rambling around the internet one night, I found this poem by Stanley Kunitz, and thought I'd take this opportunity to share it with you. I hope you like it.


The Science of the Night
by Stanley Kunitz

I touch you in the night, whose gift was you,
My careless sprawler,
And I touch you cold, unstirring, star-bemused,
That have become the land of your self-strangeness.

What long seduction of the bone has led you
Down the imploring roads I cannot take
Into the arms of ghosts I never knew,
Leaving my manhood on a rumpled field
To guard you where you lie so deep
In absent-mindedness,
Caught in the calcium snows of sleep?

And even should I track you to your birth
Through all the cities of your mortal trial,
As in my jealous thought I try to do,
You would escape me--from the brink of earth
Take off to where the lawless auroras run,
You with your wild and metaphysic heart.

My touch is on you, who are light-years gone.

We are not souls but systems, and we move
In clouds of our unknowing
 like great nebulae.

Our very motives swirl and have their start
With father lion and with mother crab.

Dreamer, my own lost rib,
Whose planetary dust is blowing
Past archipelagoes of myth and light
What far Magellans are you mistress of
To whom you speed the pleasure of your art?
As through a glass that magnifies my loss
I see the lines of your spectrum shifting red,
The universe expanding, thinning out,
Our worlds flying, oh flying, fast apart.


From hooded powers and from abstract flight
I summon you, your person and your pride.

Fall to me now from outer space,
Still fastened desperately to my side;
Through gulfs of streaming air
Bring me the mornings of the milky ways
Down to my threshold in your drowsy eyes;
And by the virtue of your honeyed word
Restore the liquid language of the moon,
That in gold mines of secrecy you delve.

Awake!
 My whirling hands stay at the noon,
Each cell within my body holds a heart
And all my hearts in unison strike twelve.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

12 comments:

  1. Circles and rectangles all moving in great big movements and oh, Stanley Kunitz words demands a reading and rereading ... juicy good stuff!

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    1. Thanks for stopping by, Mary Ann - I'm glad you enjoyed it!

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  2. this poem took me around the universe
    deep within
    in as many directions as there are stars
    your art is a joy to see Sharmon

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    1. Tammie, I'm glad you enjoyed the poem, as well as the art. Thanks for visiting!

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  3. Beautiful piece and beautiful poem. xoxo

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  4. Gorgeous ,meditative art..so stunning my friend...and this poem is absolutely spellbinding! Beautiful companions you have shared today..both in visuals and words!!
    HUgs
    Happy October!
    Victoria

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    1. Victoria, thanks for the kind words... I'm so glad you enjoyed stopping by!

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Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts with me. I'm happy to reply here, but may not always have time for individual emails.