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DAWN EDGES OVER THE CURVED HORIZON With dawn in Indiana cheating sparrows mass the branches where owls had caressed in autumn when barren of foliage and even the most fool could see the who perched but during the summer of the rampant leaves and shadows scudding with the clouds I shouldered and aimed my Daisy toward passage rite of murder from innocence to manhood and with first bird down I grew large, full of the happy juice of success, and at my feet the crumpled flesh flaccid with its wet wound I could not touch touched me with what I'd done. Now I in Indiana dawn after the night of the gift realized that life would be so much taking with violence a little innocence I had or it might be the violent taking of some innocence from the world-- this is how it would come to be that I would know no innocence; rather I would see in the worm survival of a fittest that I might never understand. In the latest hour after midnight shift the millwork overtime at my back the sanctimonious feel of work done well in my groin and the ritual ache and a smile of pocketed first paycheck toward conquest of a childish fear I took me bold with a swagger in my mind up to that house where honest men who had shaved themselves longer than I had been solemnly grouped in the parlor with its high Hoosier decor and I said hellos naming all around ignorant of being unaware among friends not there in the crowd where we sat huddled on the dark divan and I first time oblivious feet upon the ottoman and to myself thinking about sparrows their crumpled flesh flaccid and the wet wound I could not touch suddenly touching me with what I had done. Now I in Indiana in the latest hour had given myself without violence or so I thought though violence had in my heart indwelled stole up with its memory of murder of a fittest that I'd never understand. These moments are the whole of life, its truth if ever there were a truth, the outer world of science and the inner core of philosophy, their truth-- I am the victim of my own good aim; the prey I would not be; the sparrow and owl are one flight; the hunted and hunter, one beast; worker and work are me. Will you never sleep long and straight, arms unfurled in anticipation of a dreamed embrace? Uncurl and untwist your sleep; there's no need for uncertain position. © John Horváth Jr |
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Commentary: Form here weds meaning. Compound complex sentences and the rush of new emotions that spill over from one event to the next. And memory fragments it all into comprehensible parts. We recall moments from the life of a deceased loved one, as if those brief moments were 'life' itself. Three stanzas suggest life, life's beginning, middle and end. But those last two lines: is the end actually the end? Is the horizon curved? We absolutely KNOW that the earth is round? Then those last two lines when the speaker turns to direct address. Who is addressed at the end? John Horváth Jr Bonfire contributor |