In the Desert
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- In the Desert*
A rocking, gently loping forward movement,the softly echoing bounce after each step,the entire ride hung suspendedin that swung bounce, come immemorialdistances, and easily as far to go it seems;the load, in that lift forward, carried on the air,and we on the music of that rhythm;the oily black ball, a sweet exhaustcloud we raise behind us. The singer,
his instrument, the one remaining stringhe plays with the needle of a featherfrom an unknown bird singsits indeterminate song his answering call.
What he sings against lay across the roadas at a crossing a snake of railroad carsof glowing metal slag firesthe night out of nowhere from horizon tohorizon. How do you get 'round such drawn line?
The music notes the line of cars as a lineof music, the song focuses the fire intoa blood moon and sings it higheruntil it's pure and it's daylight wholein a song, and the dark line of cars burns away
in its stop, in the song's end.In a song we complete the openness of time,the portrait drawing in the journey's line,and we begin from where we are free of again. [End Page 770]
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
* For Elizabeth Elmira "Snookie" Roberson (1918–2007)
