The Poem Returning As An Invisible Wren To The World By Larry Levis

The Poem Returning as an Invisible Wren to the World

BY LARRY LEVIS (1946-1996)

Once, there was a poem. No one read it & the poem

Grew wise. It grew wise & then it grew thin,

No one could see it perched on the woman's

Small shoulders as she went on working beside

The gray conveyor belt with the others.

No one saw the poem take the shape of a wren,

A wren you could look through like a window,

And see all the bitterness of the world

In the long line of shoulders & faces bending

Over the gleaming, machined parts that passed

Before them, the faces transformed by the grace

And ferocity of a wren, a wren you could look

Through, like a lens, to see them working there.

This is not about how she thew herself into the river,

For she didn't, nor is it about the way her breasts

Looked in the moonlight, nor about the moonlight at all.

This is about the surviving curve of the bridge

Where she listened to the river whispering to her,

When the wren flew off & left her there,

With the knowledge of it singing in her blood.

By which the wind avenges. By which the rain avenges.

By which even the limb of a dead tree leaning

Above the white, swirling mouth of an eddy

In the river that once ran beside the factory window

Where she once worked, shall be remembered

When the dead come back, & take their places

Beside her on the line, & the gray conveyor belt

Starts up with its raspy hum again. Like a heaven's.

***

Writing is interesting and transformational.

I write first for myself. I was talking to my wife last week … and she was saying, “Why. Why this, why that?” She would say in letters, “You’re still writing. You write all the time. Just keep writing”, and I would reply. “I’m afraid if I stop I won’t do it anymore.” And she said, “Well, why? What are you afraid of?” And I said, “Well, writing keeps me feeling good about myself, keeps me feeling alive, keeps me …,” and the I said, “It’s the only thing that keeps me interested”… Suddenly everything comes back and it’s at once crystal clear and also meaningless: that tree disguised in shadow in summer, sunlight on a doorstep that transforms it into a threshold of desire and then of loss, just the pure phenomenon. (My italics. P.93, The Gazer Within)

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