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 More on poetry from The Atlantic Monthly. Also by Stanley Plumly: John 6:17 (2001) Strays (2000) Piano (1999) Naps (1998) The Marriage in the Trees (1996) Will Work for Food (1993) In Answer to Amy's Question What's a Pickerel (1990) Hedgerows (1987) |
Promising the Air
A woman I loved talked in her sleep to children.by Stanley Plumly ..... She would start her half of the conversation, her half of asking, of answering the need to bring the boy up the path from some dream-lake, some wandering source, water, a river, or a road along the tree-line of a river, she would say his small name, then silence, privacy, the drift back to the center. The child was the tenderness in her voice. I can remember waking myself up talking, saying nothing that mattered but loud enough for someone else to hear. No one was there. It was like coming alive, suddenly, in a body. I was afraid, as in the dark we are each time new. I was afraid, word of mouth, out of breath. Waking is the first lonliness— but sleep can be anything you want, the path to the summerhouse, silence, or a call across water. I am taught, and believe, that even in light the mind wanders, speaks before thinking. This piece of a poem is for her who wept without waking, who, word for word, kept her promise to the air. And for the boy.
Copyright © 2003 by The Atlantic Monthly Group. All rights reserved. The Atlantic Monthly; April 1982; Promising the Air; Volume 249, No. 4; 28. |
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