November 15, 2006

Purgation

DESCENDING THEOLOGY: THE RESURRECTION

From the far star points of his pinned extremities,
cold inched in--black ice and blood ink--
till the hung flesh was empty. Lonely in that void
even for pain, he missed his splintered feet,
the human stare buried in his face.
He ached for two hands made of meat
he could reach to the end of.
In the corpse's core, the stone fist of his heart

began to bang on the stiff chest's door,
and breath spilled back into that battered shape. Now
it's your limbs he longs to flow into
from the sunflower center in your chest
outward--as warm water
shatters at birth, rivering every way.

--Mary Karr, Sinners Welcome

Posted by Jared at November 15, 2006 11:11 AM | TrackBack
Comments

I know and love this poem. It was passed onto me last semana santa. Typical madern poem with its eliotesque barrage of images with "echoes" of meaning (see "Journey of the Magi")

I particularly like the initial compass-rose image and birth/rebirth ending

Good poem even though, surprizingly, it fails to mention LeTourneau even once

Posted by: fry at November 16, 2006 12:31 PM
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