The red spot on two mating cranes…
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- The red spot on two mating cranes…*
The red spot on two mating craneswas their prisoner;
but it was their dancingthat would not let go
of their beauty: the bruise ofwho holds who the half
missing half or the accomplished egg ofthe masked dancer half in the crane suit;
that spot is almost an unoccupiedmusic in our time that won't let go
someone dressed up like naturetrying to dance up a future.
Putting on paint and feathers, stepping oneof us through survival, do we all—
If I teach this phoenix to dance would itpartner my way to walk, tell time, would I fly—
Unable to be anywhere but herecan I get out of here the secret how
to hold my spot between stepsin that burning mid-air to the next— [End Page 644]
How much secret of my own step can I getturned over to me
by the torture of possession in this mask,this interrogation of ground going after the air?
To wear the moment costumed in a feather's present,its plumage consequence of scale's event nailed on,
spots swimming before its eyes is to bepossessed by, mated to what mask we've made see
and what it sees cast in the steps thrown on the ground:ourselves as messianic bird cult far behind
the celled machines of our disappearance, sees usmaking up wings to save a bird among our species
with sticks and waxa beg
to be taught a dance backfrom over the edge of the end. [End Page 645]
Ed Roberson is Distinguished Artist in Residence at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. He is author of eight books of poetry: The New Wing of the Labyrinth (Singing Horse Press, 2009), City Eclogue (Atelos, 2006), Atmosphere Conditions (Sun & Moon Press, 2000; winner of the 2000 National Poetry Award), Just In / Word of Navigational Challenges: New and Selected Poems (Talisman House, 1998), Voices Cast Out to Talk Us In (University of Iowa Press, 1995; winner of the 1994 Iowa Poetry Prize), Lucid Interval as Integral Music (University of Iowa Press, 1995; winner of the Iowa Poetry Prize), Etai-Eken (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1975), and When Thy King Is a Boy (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1970). In 2008, he received the Shelley Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Footnotes
* "The red spot on two mating cranes…" will be published in Ed Roberson's forthcoming volume of poetry, To See the Earth Before the End of the World (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan UP, 2010). Printed with permission from Wesleyan University Press.
