N O V E M B E R 1 9 9 7
NO ESCAPE
by Peter Davison
Hear Peter Davison read this poem (in RealAudio).(For help, see a note about the audio.)
Also by Peter Davison:
You (2000)
Best Friend (2000)
These Days (2000)
Falling Water (1998)
On Mount Timpanogos, 1935 (1997)
Like No Other (1997)
"I Hardly Dream of Anyone Who Is Still Alive" (1995)
The Unfrocked Governess (1994)
The Passing of Thistle (1989)
The Obituary Writer (1974)
Gifts (1965)
The Winner (1958)
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No, not yet, move nothing until
you have filled yourself with
intention, or
your act will freeze, immutable, and
your thought will have aborted
into misshapen stumbling.
We stammer in the effort to speak, lurch
out of a passion to walk, slump
in lieu of sitting; yet,
within, awareness reaches toward
an attainable state in which
we seek to direct our selves
as a rider guides the most accomplished of
horses, crupper gathering, hooves
pattering, neck yearning toward
heaven, and the supple trunk
conveys itself over the earth without
anticipation or effort.
This is the ascent into the self,
encountering possibility just as it
flowers into the actual.
We attain fulfillment only if we carry
the breath of the world
without surrender
or escape.
Copyright © 1997 by The Atlantic Monthly Company. All rights reserved.
The Atlantic Monthly; November 1997; No Escape; Volume 280, No. 5; page 88.
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