Posts tagged olena kalytiak davis
Posts tagged olena kalytiak davis
“And you will no longer be
worrying the stars into meaning, they will
already mean something, but that will only be the wind,
only the wind that will be
keen and keening.
All else will remain hidden and nameless.
By which I mean: your soul.”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, from “Perhaps By Then You Will No Longer Be In Love,” from her collection, And Her Soul Out of Nothing
”My friends,
it’s our hearts, we should be
walking around grabbing our hearts,
for what could be more burdened,
more efflorescent? Tell me, what’s
as unfolding, as spiked and as shooted
as this, our dissilient heart.”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, the closing lines of “Against Devotion,” in her collection, And Her Soul Out of Nothing
“(there was once a room in a house that filled in orange light)
have you ever loved anything?
more than this elusive something afloat
in the thin thin air?
didn’t you once have a sister
who is now like my sister, a petal thin Lament?
and didn’t you ask for this?
haven’t you always been a sucker
for the personification of the heart? and
the soul? haven’t you repeatedly addressed her?”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, from “Saxifrage and Cinquefoil” in her collection, And Her Soul Out Of Nothing
I asked for this. I am a sucker for the personification of the heart.
“Quick,
before our bodies turn themselves in,
with a reverence reserved for the dead touch me,
because I want to remember how beautiful I still am.
While Spring snows around us, cracking her eggs
on our windows, in her meager dress of yellowing-white,
because I want to rise into today.”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, from “Something More Fragile Than This,” in her collection, And Her Soul Out of Nothing
Quick. I want to remember.
“Soon she will be weightless,
lifted like a glass. Soon she will be seen to
and through. A toast to the bride
for she’s about to dehisce:
in a quiet house seven years later she snaps
on a light at three thirty in the dark
afternoon because the mountain has chosen
to marry the stars.
in a quiet house seven years later she knows
of what she speaks:
This was meant to celebrate love.”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, “Bitterns, Heronries” from her collection, And Her Soul Out Of Nothing
It’s the seven years later that gets me. Seven years is the length of the teind to Hell.
“Angels and moths:
that’s who men love.
But I don’t recollect like that.
I don’t think I ever loved
that gently. And I’ve never
flown toward a burning
house, hoping, maybe
my faith lay in that
single thing left,
in that smoldering filigree.
I never reminisce
a sorrow that delicately shaped.”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, from “Angels and Moths,” in her collection, And Her Soul Out Of Nothing
“Wind against window and my late flowering brain,
Heavy, gone to seed. Pacing
From room to room and in each window
A different version of a framed woman
Unable to rest, set against a sky
Full of beating wings and abandoned
Directions. Her five chambered heart
Filling with the panic of birds, asking: What?
What if not this?”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, from “The Panic of Birds”
I love that description of the sky - full of beating wings and abandoned directions. It is true, of course, but not at all the usual way of looking at the sky.
Poetry is best, I think, when it shows us the bones of new truths.
“And just this morning my love
was briefly stuck in my throat
as I remembered all the soil
and sadness, remembered seeing you
on certain streets and corners, remembered
all the rubble and the clang. Remember
how it is and isn’t fragile?
How it speaks in ears and fingers
takes days and hours and still
it wants nothing and it wants more”
Olena Kalytiak Davis, from “The Gauze of Flowers, A Love Poem” in her collection And Her Soul Out of Nothing
A beautiful description of the less-beautiful parts of love. The rubble and the clang, the soil and the sadness. Posted for the friend who introduced me to Davis’ poetry.
