G r e y i s m• Show poetry

Emily (Joanna Newsom)

The meadowlark and the chim-choo-ree and the sparrow
Set to the sky in a flying spree, for the sport of the pharaoh.
A little while later, the Pharisees dragged a comb through the meadow.
Do you remember what they called up to you and me, in our window?

There is a rusty light on the pines tonight;
Sun pouring wine, lord, or marrow, down into the
Bones of the birches, and the spires of the churches, jutting out from the shadows;
The yoke, and the axe, and the old smokestacks, and the bale, and the barrow
And everything sloped, like it was dragged from a rope, in the mouth of the south below.

We’ve seen those mountains kneeling, felten and grey.
We thought our very hearts would up and melt away,

From that snow in the nighttime,
Just going and going

And the stirring of wind chimes
In the morning
In the morning

Helps me find my way back in
From the place where I have been

And, Emily, I saw you last night by the river.
I dreamed you were skipping little stones across the surface of the water
Frowning at the angle where they were lost, and slipped under forever,
In a mud-cloud, mica-spangled, like the sky’d been breathing on a mirror.

Anyhow, I sat by your side, by the water.
You taught me the names of the stars overhead, that I wrote down in my ledger
Though all I knew of the rote universe were those Pleiades, loosed in December,
I promised you I’d set them to verse, so I’d always remember

That the meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor’s just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.
And the meteorite’s just what causes the light,
And the meteor’s how it’s perceived;
And the meteoroid’s a bone thrown from the void, that lies quiet in offering to thee.

*

You came and lay a cold compress upon the mess I’m in;
Threw the window wide, and cried amen amen amen.
The whole world stopped to hear you hollering.
And you looked down, and saw, now, what was happening:

The lines are fading in my kingdom
(though I have never known the way to border them in);
So the muddy mouths of baboons and sows, and the grouse, and the horse, and the hen
Grope at the gate of the looming lake that was once a tiny pen.
And the mail is late, and the great estates are not lit from within.
The talk in town’s becoming downright sickening.

In due time we will see the far butte lit by a flare.
I’ve seen your bravery, and I will follow you there

And row through the nighttime,
Gone healthy,
Gone healthy all of a sudden,

In search of the midwife
Who could help me
Who could help me,

Help me find my way back in.
There are worries where i’ve been.

Say, say, say, in the lee of the bay
Don’t be bothered.
Leave your troubles here,
Where the tugboats shear the water from the water
(flanked by furrows, curling back, like a match held up to a newspaper).

Emily, they’ll follow your lead by the letter.
And I make this claim, and I’m not ashamed to say I knew you better.
What they’ve seen is just a beam of your sun that banishes winter.

Let us go! Though we know it’s a hopeless endeavor.
The ties that bind, they are barbed and spined, and hold us close forever.

Though there is nothing would help me come to grips with
A sky that is gaping and yawning,
There is a song I woke with on my lips,
As you sailed your great ship towards the morning.

Come on home. The poppies are all grown knee-deep by now.
Blossoms all have fallen, and the pollen ruins the plow.
Peonies nod in the breeze,
And as they wetly bow
With hydrocephalitic listlessness,
Ants mop up their brow.

And everything with wings is restless, aimless, drunk and dour;
Butterflies and birds collide at hot, ungodly hours.
My clay-colored motherlessness rangily reclines
Come on home, now! All my bones are dolorous with vines.

Pa pointed out to me, for the hundredth time tonight,
The way the ladle leads to a dirt-red bullet of light.

Squint skyward and listen
Loving him, we move within his borders:
Just asterisms in the stars’ set order.

We could stand for a century,
Staring,
With our heads cocked,
In the broad daylight, at this thing:

Joy,
Landlocked in bodies that don’t keep
Dumbstruck with the sweetness of being,
Till we don’t be.
Told: take this.
Eat this.

Told: the meteorite is the source of the light,
And the meteor’s just what we see;
And the meteoroid is a stone that’s devoid of the fire that propelled it to thee.

And the meteorite is just what causes the light,
And the meteor’s how it’s perceived;
And the meteoroid’s a bone thrown from the void that lies quiet in offering to thee.