Dan Beachy-Quick
a poem
**
Lullaby-Ease
I know a friend who knows a friend
Who knows the mountain lion
Would open his jaws if he rested
His head in his lap and patience sang
So patience sang and the lion opened
As cloud opens as caught in jaws
The fog must be trusted to rise in sky
As sky to see what shapes we’ll sing
.................the grass lake yellow below the yellow
..........................aspen and all is aspen-all
..................................shy-leafing
.................in breeze before the fuse entire is blown
.................not now, not now, as with the lion’s life
.........................yours not yet turned inward
..................................to see in
.................yellow leaf a gold coin, a sun, a jaundice
.................eye is not yet your eye, you aspen-all, you
.........................grass lake, do you see
..................................on the sill
.................the geranium leaf catches the geranium
.................petal as it falls? And so me of you? These limbs
.........................that astound, these hands that maze
..................................life into form
.................Would hold. Be patient with the clouds
Even the fly on the lion’s tooth sees
In compound the clouds we will see
Excess in angles but we might bear
The varying awe into a drop
Of dew still dew all afternoon
The sun is not so hot as thought
When insects tat the leaves to lace
The damage lets the beauty through
..........................in plainsong.....song in song.....plainspeech
..........................and I would tell you what I know
..........................except I do not know what I know, nor
..........................how to tell you words about the world
..........................which has no words.....and yet I cannot
..........................be blank for you.....you who knows no
..........................resemblance.....whose sight is not limned
..........................by border nor by edge of what.....you see
..........................each is infinite and present to you.....as you are
..........................to me.....except when I speak of you.....and feel
..........................you depart behind description.....and all
..........................I’d point to and say this is & this is & . . .
..........................already I’m sorry that grace must return to be felt
..........................“for abiding is nowhere”.....but in you now
..........................when the sky is as wide as the brain.....and the tree
..........................infinite in length for none is separate from none
..........................but all one light of single wave
..........................that entering your eye.....you become this world you see
..........................these silent years.....before the world.....wears your face
..........................before you turn inwards and your life.....yellows
..........................What can I do but lessen.....the likeness.....sincerely
..........................in plainspeech.....song in song.....plainsong
When in the sky the menagerie passes
Look The Lion! Look The Fly!
Look That’s us! I’ll say, pointing
To you at ourselves in the sky
Dust and wind and dew in blue abyss
Until we float into the lion’s mouth
That yawns so wide it swallows itself
And the cloud billows and darkens
.................and when the nimbus rising downward swells
.........................darkening blue into bells
..................................inverted
.................then some tongue sings the mouth in notes—
.................the thunder then will logic not lament
.........................that overfull our song relents
..................................to be sung
.................and note one bloom’s—white lace—our music’s result
Not to pluck nor smell nor see
It comes to the world as you to me
Some unforeseen gift of tribulation
That breathes so gentle
I must relearn how to see I see
Patience is the only song I sing
My little lion my bee asleep in cloud
My little fly dozing in the deep bloom
**
return to sawbuck 1.1
**
Dan Beachy-Quick teaches in the MFA Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His most recent book is Mulberry, published last year by Tupelo Press.
**
Lullaby-Ease
I know a friend who knows a friend
Who knows the mountain lion
Would open his jaws if he rested
His head in his lap and patience sang
So patience sang and the lion opened
As cloud opens as caught in jaws
The fog must be trusted to rise in sky
As sky to see what shapes we’ll sing
.................the grass lake yellow below the yellow
..........................aspen and all is aspen-all
..................................shy-leafing
.................in breeze before the fuse entire is blown
.................not now, not now, as with the lion’s life
.........................yours not yet turned inward
..................................to see in
.................yellow leaf a gold coin, a sun, a jaundice
.................eye is not yet your eye, you aspen-all, you
.........................grass lake, do you see
..................................on the sill
.................the geranium leaf catches the geranium
.................petal as it falls? And so me of you? These limbs
.........................that astound, these hands that maze
..................................life into form
.................Would hold. Be patient with the clouds
Even the fly on the lion’s tooth sees
In compound the clouds we will see
Excess in angles but we might bear
The varying awe into a drop
Of dew still dew all afternoon
The sun is not so hot as thought
When insects tat the leaves to lace
The damage lets the beauty through
..........................in plainsong.....song in song.....plainspeech
..........................and I would tell you what I know
..........................except I do not know what I know, nor
..........................how to tell you words about the world
..........................which has no words.....and yet I cannot
..........................be blank for you.....you who knows no
..........................resemblance.....whose sight is not limned
..........................by border nor by edge of what.....you see
..........................each is infinite and present to you.....as you are
..........................to me.....except when I speak of you.....and feel
..........................you depart behind description.....and all
..........................I’d point to and say this is & this is & . . .
..........................already I’m sorry that grace must return to be felt
..........................“for abiding is nowhere”.....but in you now
..........................when the sky is as wide as the brain.....and the tree
..........................infinite in length for none is separate from none
..........................but all one light of single wave
..........................that entering your eye.....you become this world you see
..........................these silent years.....before the world.....wears your face
..........................before you turn inwards and your life.....yellows
..........................What can I do but lessen.....the likeness.....sincerely
..........................in plainspeech.....song in song.....plainsong
When in the sky the menagerie passes
Look The Lion! Look The Fly!
Look That’s us! I’ll say, pointing
To you at ourselves in the sky
Dust and wind and dew in blue abyss
Until we float into the lion’s mouth
That yawns so wide it swallows itself
And the cloud billows and darkens
.................and when the nimbus rising downward swells
.........................darkening blue into bells
..................................inverted
.................then some tongue sings the mouth in notes—
.................the thunder then will logic not lament
.........................that overfull our song relents
..................................to be sung
.................and note one bloom’s—white lace—our music’s result
Not to pluck nor smell nor see
It comes to the world as you to me
Some unforeseen gift of tribulation
That breathes so gentle
I must relearn how to see I see
Patience is the only song I sing
My little lion my bee asleep in cloud
My little fly dozing in the deep bloom
**
return to sawbuck 1.1
**
Dan Beachy-Quick teaches in the MFA Writing Program at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His most recent book is Mulberry, published last year by Tupelo Press.
