Poetry is always a mixture of the five senses, and the sixth? the ability to know and celebrate what really matters. Here's to the celebration of poetry and life:-)
Not Sense
By Gail Tremblay (b. 1945)
The tongue shapes and
molds sound. Speech
Becomes sensation in the
mouth vibrating
on the palate and the
teeth – touch
done with more than
fingertips transmutes
itself to rhythm in the
ear. Words outleap
meaning and turn into a
way to move.
We speak the names that
objects will become.
Voice wakes the light, and
we begin to see
the shadows leaves can
make against the wood.
We say Earth spins, and
suddenly the clouds
move like ghosts of old
ones bringing rain
that loves the growing
things upon the ground.
I listen to your breath
against my skin
and wait for you to name
the way you feel,
to tell me where you’ve
been and where you go,
to find the shape of
things we share and have
to give. I learn and
whisper words to let you see
My tongue slips nimbly
past my teeth
and finds lips ready to
caress
the line of small round
scars that mark
your cheek. Nothing mars
the surface
of your skin; what is is
graceful and words
could never see it any
other way. I watch with senses
more perceptive than my
eyes, and let you touch me
more than once or twice.
Your voice says little;
sound echoes in my senses
like the wind.
You fill the dark passages
of form with murmurs
that inhabit me until I learn it’s sound not sense
that fills the world, that
keeps me warm.
Nims, F. (1992). Western wind: An introduction to poetry.
New Yor: McGraw-Hill.
