The permanence of impermanence June 11, 2012

 


In a poem posted five days after her previous one, she performs a bit of poetic gymnastics, shifting from a tone of almost moral indignation in the poem posted earlier to one of seemingly extreme personal introspection in the poem posted today.

Along with her ability to master use of language, this shift in tone and an always changing approach to each poem makes her such a powerful and intimidating poet, a delight to read even when I am the subject of her admonishment.

This poem is far less about me than about the pattern of relationships she’s had with those she had touched and who have touched her.

This then raises what appears to be one of the central dilemmas of her life, although with one significant exception, this poem as in other poems avoids the use of pronouns that make it utterly personal.

She questions the patterns of her life (if indeed the poem actor and the poet can be assumed as the same person which is always a risky thing).

If something happens again and again, does it become “a routine,” even though this defies the common definition of what routine is. Most would define routine as the usual order of doing things, the way things are normally done as in a job, or if in a relationship – the expectations of that relationship: people meet, get personal, and then get attached.

In this poem, however, she takes up a secondary meaning that creates the central paradox of the poem: an unvarying and constantly repeated pattern of actions, done almost mechanically, a habit of behavior she has fallen into over time, almost parting in its repetition. Yet more importantly in the deeper irony of her “flitting”  in and out of other people’s lives, defies the routine what other people might expect such as permanence and a long-term relationship in what she calls “a chaos and unpredictability of days,” a routine of impermanence, each day having her dive into the unknown, and raising an even more fundamental question:  Is her not committing to anyone remaining true to herself.

Only in this last question do we get the definitive “I”, almost rebellious and defiant in his placement in the closing portion of the poem, yet without being argumentative.

It is difficult to tell at whom she is directing this poem. But it is clearly not just a poem written for herself either, unless as a response to the questions those early morning voices raise that drag her out of bed before five, and perhaps to others who have asked, why she hasn’t settled down with some good man or woman.

She is perhaps asking herself the same questions they ask, how she can go from touching and being touched with the possibility of permanence, acknowledging that there the potential for real comfort in a long-term relationship.

The poem uses a structure she has used before, a kind of call and response, in which the first portion of the poem establishes the basic question, and the second half seeks to come up with a response.

This is echoed in her language use where we get iconic words representing well-known routine such as “census,” “permanence” and “long-term” in the opening passage, while the concluding portions use more ironic language such as ‘chaos,” “unpredictability,” and brilliantly, “unscheduled schedule,” to eventually reach her daily dive into the unknown.

There is no regret here.

In fact, there is something attractive in all this, an “On the Road” kind of Beat perspective we might get some a writer like Kerouac, telling us that this is her life and that she has come to terms with it, and anyone reacting to her, should accept this as her life, too.



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