Margaret Soltan on a summer's-day poem by D.A. Powell—
first, a congregated light, the brilliance of a meadowland in bloom
and then the image must fail, as we must fail, as we
graceless creatures that we are, unmake and befoul our beds
don’t tell me deluge. don’t tell me heat, too damned much heat
"Specifically, your trope is the trope of every life:
the organizing of the disparate parts of a personality
into a self (a congregated light), blazing youth
(a meadowland in bloom), and then the failure
of that image, the failure of that self to sustain itself."
Alternate title for Soltan's commentary, suggested by yesterday's Portrait:
Smart Jewish Girl Fwows Up.
Midrash on Soltan—
Wert thou my enemy, O thou my friend,
How wouldst thou worse, I wonder, than thou dost
Defeat, thwart me?
"…meadow-down is not distressed
For a rainbow footing…."