I can’t get over Carl Phillips’ “Dirt Being Dirt”. Here it is in its entirety:
Dirt Being Dirt
The orchard was on fire, but that didn’t stop him from slowly walking
straight into it, shirtless, you can see where the flames have
foliaged—here, especially—his chest. Splashed by the moon,
it almost looks like the latest proof that, while decoration is hardly
ever necessary, it’s rarely meaningless: the tuxedo’s corsage,
fog when lit scatteredly, swift, from behind—swing of a torch, the lone
match, struck, then wind-shut…How far is instinct from a thing
like belief? Not far, apparently. At what point is believing so close
to knowing, that any difference between the two isn’t worth the fuss,
finally? A tamer of wolves tames no foxes, he used to say, as if avoiding
the question. But never meaning to. You broke it. Now wear it broken.
In a note, Phillips says: “I think this poem is circling the idea of refusing to change the self, even when it’s understood as deeply flawed, given that we have to believe in something…”
I love the way the poem circles around the point where belief and knowledge converge into something that feels essential. And I love the short syntax of the final line, the command whose tone is almost reassuring or encouraging rather than distant. I think that tone is the most difficult to capture—the tone of a voice complicit in human intimacy, in the brokenness and resolve of that.
How is staying whole part of coexisting with one’s ongoing brokenness? Why is the temptation for redemption such a strong narrative trope in poetics, and how much more do we risk by refusing it? I don’t have answers. But here are more poems about broken things….
“What’s Broken” by Dorianne Laux
“Broken Things” by GC Waldrep
“Broken Things” by Sara Teasdale
“I Will Keep Broken Things” by Alice Walker
“The God of Broken Things” by Yusef Komunyakaa
“Ode to Broken Things” by Pablo Neruda
And then, as an adage, as a mantra: Carl Phillips’ “Gold Leaf”. One of my favorite poems to share with my teen son when he is dancing with despair. As one must in this world sometimes.