Song Against Natural Selection

[the-sin-nitesh.livejournal.com]

I received this poem in the mailbox today, and i just have to store it somewhere, share it some how. It is simply beautiful.



The weak survive!
A man with a damaged arm,
a house missing a single brick, one step
torn away from the other steps
the way I was once torn away
from you; this hurts us, it

isn't what we'd imagined, what
we'd hoped for when we were young
and still hoping for, still imagining things,
but we manage, we survive. Sure,
losing is hard work, one limb severed
at a time makes it that much harder

to get around the city, another word
dropped from our vocabularies
and the remaining words are that much heavier
on our tongues, that much further
from ourselves, and yet people
go on talking, speech survives.

It isn't easy giving up limbs,
trying to manage with that much
less to eat each week, that much more
money we know we'll never make,
things we not only can't buy, but
can't afford to look at in the stores;

this hurts us, and yet we manage, we survive
so that losing itself becomes a kind
of song, our song, our only witness
to the way we die, one day at a time;
a leg severed, a word buried: this
is how we recognize ourselves, and why.

-- Edward Hirsch

Comments

[lunar-endeavor.livejournal.com]

Excellent. Thanks so much for sharing. :)

[the-sin-nitesh.livejournal.com]

It is always a pleasure! :)

[elsabeta.livejournal.com]

Wow. If these are the sorts of things your mail carrier brings you, then you are lucky indeed. Many thanks.

[arcanefruition.livejournal.com]

I believe it is from Minstrels, which you can sign up to receive in your (email) mailbox here: http://www.cs.rice.edu/~ssiyer/minstrels/

Very very nice poems every day and a great archive if you're looking for poems online.

[elsabeta.livejournal.com]

A poem a day in one's snail mailbox would have been something indeed, though. :) Ah, well...

And my thanks for that link--by chance, today's poem is by Elizabeth Bishop, who is quite possibly my favourite poet. I plan to subscribe directly.

[the-sin-nitesh.livejournal.com]

I am but part of a mailing list.. one poem a day, every morning. Sometimes, it does make my day.
:-)

[elsabeta.livejournal.com]

May I inquire as to which mailing list? I'm looking into ArcaneFruition's suggestion--I used to be part of a daily poem mailing list, but the emails stopped rather abruptly. Again, my thanks. :)