for Jack Collom on his 80th birthday
1 /
A miracle
more ordinary than
the grass
under our feet
the hot sun
as it dazzles
eyes & skin
so many memories
blending into one
we have no place
to go but where
we are no nearer
to the source
2 /
A miracle
open on all sides
toward which
the mind moves slowly
& the eye
as in a dream
opens & shuts
clouds without rain
cover the sun
the animal that sleeps
over our skylight
knows neither rest
nor waking
only a dream
3 /
Turn of the hand
by which a perfect
bird comes into
view a flight
over the heads of some
no mystery
in what we see
we walk away
from it no sooner
gone when something
ever bright
a flash of wing
assails us
heretofore concealed
4 /
The real comes first
the fancy a far second
hard to tell apart
still harder in the dark
the eye too weak
the skin still weaker
like the mind
the origin of species
hides its birth
the contours of the real
the hand feels
& the eye imagines
only later
in singular pursuit
5/
A miracle
to make the seen
forerunner
of the unseen
the animal you see
its metamorphosis
deferred
imagination
lurks here
brings concealments
into light
the world inside
the mind
turns upside down
6 /
A miracle
to live a life
in celebration
knowing fear
& feeling death
he finds the poem
more to his taste
they call it fancy
a game of chance
or choice
that pulls the mind
back from the literal
opens a door
to the imagined real
7 /
A miracle
from which
the other miracle
proceeds
the owl living
night long
in the palm tree
a flight of pelicans
brown shadows
east of where the sun
touches the ocean
a miracle of distant bodies
voices from the sky
sounds absent words
8 /
A miracle
the sun crushed
by its clouds
the mind retreats from
blood lines
staining the horizon
raining down
the word is firmament
a cracked sky
over the sun & moon
imagined trackers
behind which
light seeps forth
a field of stars
9 /
A miracle
our lives that pass
a barrier
the evil wind
is not so evil
but brings us words
to string into a poem
nowhere to go
but up & out
the miracle
even to know
that knowing ends
having all tried & failed
against the odds
[A powerful defender of what Goethe called “the rights of nature” & a writer of focused & highly honed means, Jack Collom (born November 8, 1931) is an American poet, teacher & essayist. His twenty-three books include Blue Heron & IBC, The Fox, Arguing with Something Plato Said, Red Car Goes By: Selected Poems 1955-2000, Exchanges of Earth and Sky, & Situation Sings (with Lyn Hejinian). He has been anthologized in countless magazines & collections in the United States & abroad, from Best Poems of 1963 to The Best American Poetry 2004. He has lived in Boulder, Colorado for many years, where his eightieth birthday will be celebrated, one trusts, with all appropriate warmth & fanfare. (J.R.)]
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