L.R. Harvey Poetry

BACKYARD THEOLOGY He quickens our field of vision, splits like a breath the unmown grass. Brief rustle in the corner of an eye and then a clamber heavenward, invisible among the clutter clouding our ken.  Sometimes, if we’re still, we’ll hear a rustle, a faint chitter. Still, sometimes summer silence is what we get, deep, and thicker even  than the oak. We sit a spell, waiting for a nut to fall, a leaf, something real to tell us how much higher truth is than we would ever dare to guess.

LIFESPAN OF A POEM First lines pop up like a positive test,  and then the wild, frenetic life-thirst  of little ones. At three, the world sings  a litany of possibilities—nothing can’t be edited here. There follows then   an angsty bit, the adolescent realization  that one cannot be all things to all  readers—ch oices must be made. All  paths do not double back. Then somewhere in  the middle part, a crisis—call it a reconsideration— of whether this is going somewhere at all—or, to put it in a finer font, somewhere  worth going. But here we've reached a stage where, like it or not, we must now face the one perennial perplexity ourselves— how then do we end, and well ? A pressing question. Ironically, less pressure when bound in something bigger.

AN INCARNATED WORD IS A POEM I.  He knows our tongues are but  a strip of meat, if ones which  nonetheless are necessary for a taste  of what is numinous. As such,  there is a certain body-ness to which his poetry obtains,  though in this fleshy firmness,  too, a summons—no, an invitation— through its very self and into that both searingly familiar yet beyond   our best (if somewhat dim) attempts to come to terms,                                    like an old hymn.  II. Oddly enough, it is this self-same invitation to an always -more which can irrevocably become— in lieu of here and there a line we mustn't cross—meaning- less, and with a sleight of hand which keeps the readers—at best—oblivious, at worst, proud , of such a shift. But this is not to say we might   then circumvent the poem, ask the poet what he meant. He sent, you may recall,                                 the poem for that.

THIS POEM IS 6 lbs 13 ozs and wriggles a surprising amount— cries if you wrap it too tight,  cries if you don’t. This poem is mine and anything but mine.  This poem flexes formal elements, crafted with care, but that which animates is deep, mysterious.  This poem is not of us  and is an aggregate of everything  we are, or long to be, breathing fragile couplets that keep us hovering at night,  to see, to see. I do not know where  this poem will go from here.  That said, I hope it takes me with it.

OUR WORLDS ARE A BIRDHOUSE IN EMPTY SPACE Have we considered that the robin  ought to know that the entirety  of his infrastructure is in the grip of a six foot piece  of fishing line? Has he been made  aware that fishing line wears thin  with time, exposure to elements beyond even our most adamant declarations of control? No one ever told him? True, it’s notoriously difficult to see— much less to name— the water you swim  in. Or maybe because hypocrisy, as we were taught from early on, is sin. And then, would he listen anyway?  Do we? Maybe we don’t tell him anything.  He’s doing his best. He needs a place to stay.  Maybe we wait until we find him downed  and with a broken wing, scoop him up  despite his cries of protest, then  hope there’s someone there for us  when our houses go too. This is a thought, if only one—as all—precariously built.

ALL TOGETHER IN ONE PLACE The spirit of the place, perhaps,  perhaps the lisps of light that slip in silent S’s off a sun-tongue to lick our eyelids. A long and windy homily on the uncross- able cleft that has divided us  from the divine—and a lovely one at that, intended as an exhortation that we continue pressing on this belt of body, pester, “are we there yet?”  In the meantime, yammer on, priest,  and please forgive this pent-  up exclamation, but dear belovéds,  it would appear that our heads are on fire, and maybe even— don’t panic—have always been. 

GRACE Skin shivers in the shift from shade to sun, slips  into shock from too much warmth at once. Thus    conjectures of spring fever follow, electric thermometer  beneath our tongues on getting home,  mugs of chamomile stirred with suspicion of father- love and whatever  else we didn’t earn. 

  DISILLUSIONED Committed to a glass of water,  the dream has disappeared,  along with any lasting aspirations to reclaim the dream. Suspended in a thin divide, there was a time you could have shut your eyes again, resumed reality as you’d concocted it. Thirst compelled you otherwise. Awake, the night  is alarmingly thick. That’s that—  no going back. Your best bet is to shower, shave, get dressed  for work.