Lost Morning Eyes
Every answer is in the slippery grass, an olive
snake with black eyes, a black painted snake
flashing crimson. Funny how the diagnostically
lonely mind eats its fruit. Worn leather so
smooth beneath our clinging. I’m becoming
a swimmer. The flecks of purpose circle
the hairs beneath the surface, gritty rocks
coated firm in damask silk. Having reached
the absolute center of the lake, it began to
rain- I would expect one lapse to end safely- is it
the end of the self or of the body? A frog
reads posture each day the sky grows wider
snarling discreet whorls, this wilder temper
like a sponge creature tensing all apertures
at once. They said my father has mental health
problems, issues in his internal chemistry,
but all I have seen is wise lost morning eyes,
sinking distance like gauzy rind drywalled over
a bright synaptic charge. We inherit diseased
fish with hooks disintegrating in their bellies, one
is caught still not disgesting its mother ruin,
poor word- secret beat aflow artificial
tides. This pool has been widened. For
convenience snake the hose around the
torso resigning alone to kissing dawn-
Maybe I have not seen the truth that is
done, horror aggregated in a weak hunch
of what was done- mania is imminent, we
have swum the surrender permitting
swollen dams to interfere with any single
change. I can give paper to the lake coating
her skin with mine. One word for space
is panic, another is in its own private time.
| Judah Aryeh Levenson |
|
levelheaded: Lost Morning Eyes
Quite a few poems we encounter in LEVELER turn out to have their emotional center revealed at the physical center of the poem on the page. Judah Levenson’s Lost Morning Eyes reveals its core, as hinted by the title, in the fifth stanza (beginning in the last line of the fourth and ending first line of the sixth): “They said my father has mental health / problems, issues in his internal chemistry, / but all I have seen is wise lost morning eyes, / sinking distance like gauzy rind drywalled over / a bright synaptic charge.”
Four stanzas before and four stanzas after, the poem leads us to and from this center, with the images first focusing towards these lost morning eyes, and then expanding and branching out as if walking away from what must be a sorrowful experience.
Sometimes, and no less so when a poem’s emotional core is personal, the imagery around it would be less personal, more lyrical, less direct. In our case, the speaker is preoccupied with nature, its animated or non-animated surroundings. So we start with the “slippery grass” and “the gritty rocks,” and we reach “the absolute center of a lake” and meet a curious frog, and only then we meet the father whose eyes remind the speaker of a “a bright synaptic charge.” It is an obscure image, yet it gives us a sense of the father’s visual appearance as well as the psychological state of mind in which he seems to dwell.
Leaving the center, we are kept within the same realm of the natural world and its creatures. A widened pool, a snake, swollen dams–all lead us to “space,” may it mean “panic” or rather space as in I need some space. Even here, the end is rather gentle, almost quiet, and we aren’t sure if it stands for great conflict or actually for somewhat of a resolution.
Maybe the lake is the one central image, appearing in the third and ninth stanzas, ushering the speaker through his experience. He says “I’m becoming a swimmer,” and also, “I can give paper to the lake coating / her skin with mine.” It also begins to rain right when he reaches the lake’s center. Water, the body’s origin, is everywhere. It gives comfort but also poses risk. We can’t tell its size or depth. It changes constantly, yet often seems static, unfazed.
Thinking of our reading experience of the poem as a whole, we identify with the speaker’s assessment of the situation: “Maybe I have not seen the truth that is / done, horror aggregated in a weak hunch / of what was done- mania is imminent […]”
– The Editors
P.S. We loved reading Judah Levenson’s response to our take on his poem. Here is his blog entry: http://www.judahlevenson.com/blog/poem-published-in-leveler
