Passage

Now, to search out the isolates. Gathering the bits. As Duncan said, a sense of parts fitting in relation to a design that is larger*. Neither reduction nor expansion, merely an observation. Comprehending what is happening, every happening. The cogs and wheels necessary to make a life turn, come nearer to its completion. To realize the attempt as an escapist. Working in words...want[ing] every part of the actual world involved in [the] escape*.

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Here is an instance: a library at noon. The old bacchanal wave of noon washing the pavement outside, gentle. The rustle of paper inside the library, magnified by a sloping ceiling into a pop-punk frenzy. Lamp-glass singing in the light. The devout percussions of five or so laptop keyboards. And you not even a little interested in words. Not even a little aware of how that was slowly bleeding the love out of me.

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But also the cardinalis cardinalis. Its red slash streaking among the diamond spider webs. Cutting to the heart of the matter somehow. Better than even. Or the Spanish moss sighing, not enough, not enough, while I was with the other one among the quercus virginiana in Jekyll Island.

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And so my eye, lanceolate, widens. The pupils of this emerging doctrine attend the hidden teacher of the increasing sound**. I am diving. I am the full-faced moon. I am a stream of consciousness. But I am also a space of composition. Intentional and also messy. Indiscriminate, working with whatever comes into the field. Having only words to deal with it. So in love with love and how it remakes me.

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*from the introduction of Bending the Bow by Robert Duncan, 1968

**from the poem Structure of Rime XXII, which appears in the collection Bending the Bow by Robert Duncan, 1968