The Lesson

By DANIEL TOBIN

 

Or else swoon to death, the young poet wrote,
    though these in the seminar’s steadfast room
appear to want little or none of it,
    however coddlingly the professor prods.
They are the poet’s age at death, or almost,
    but do not find “relatable” these words
composed by one who knew his passion hopeless—
    especially the sleepless Eremite,
belonging to another world and time,
    and even his fair love’s ripening breast
conjures only suspect looks, withering stares,
    or now and then a tolerating nod.
Of course, they must assume their own bright stars
          will rise aloft some digital empyrean

forever new, as each one makes their way
         to find fulfillment’s human shore, one hopes,
and not some desolate attic. It’s the boy 
         behind who’s turned to something out beyond
the glazing, at the leafless Common,
         announcing to all the falcon’s sudden plummet
in the haunt outside, the squirrel pinned,
         that beak going tenderly at neck and throat.
Will he fathom what the prey beholds
         from its hazing scrim of consciousness? The bird
lifts, soon enough, above the whitened patch
         of ground, a frozen mask, receding veil
of walks and trees, this restless cityscape,
         those wings tilting to an even paler sky.

 

Daniel Tobin is the author of nine books of poems, including From Nothing, winner of the Julia Ward Howe Award, and most recently Blood Labors, named one of the Best Poetry Books of the Year for 2018 by The New York Times and the Washington Independent Review of Books.

[Purchase Issue 24 here.] 

The Lesson

Related Posts

Hall of Mirrors

November 2023 Poetry Feature: Virginia Konchan and Gabriel Spera

GABRIEL SPERA
Gracefully we hold each other / architects and optimists / always at arm’s length like / congenital dreamers / tango masters slinkily coiled / bright candles in a hall of mirrors / whatever I propose you propose / to conquer repeating and repeating / the opposite.

a golden field of wheat

Thresher Days

OSWALDO VARGAS
The wheat wants an apology, / for taking me this long / to show my wrists / to the thresher boy. // Finally a summer where he asks how my parents are / and my jaw is ready, / stretched open so he can hear about them, / easier. // I may look different after, / I will need a new name.

People gather in protest in front of a building; a man (center) holds up a red flag

Picket Line Baby

AIDEED MEDINA
White women give my father shaded looks./ Bringing babies to do their dirty work,/ mumbled in passing. // I am paid in jelly doughnuts / for my day on the boycott. // My dad leads my baby brother / to the front of the grocery store doors / for a meeting with the manager.