On Memorizing A Poem - Max Reif

[Larry Robinson]

On Memorizing A Poem

In the beginning was the Word--
there's creativity involved,
inot just duplicating
a page of print 
in your brain.
You can't clip 
these unique flowers
of the ages
and stuff them in 
some mental vase.
You have to plant them 
inside.
First reading scatters 
seeds, atoms, 
whirling with life, 
even ones that 
seem inert. 
Repetition becomes 
a steady hand holding 
a watering can.
Imperceptibly, every word 
germinates and sprouts. 
Tendrils begin to reach out, 
join hands, solidify
a clause, link it with the body
of a sentence, until
each word is tropically bonded, 
no longer exists alone.
A stanza coheres. The force 
flows on, spirit leaps
across a gap to the next stanza, 
back to the one before!
Each reading, connections firmer. 
New ones arise, flourish 
like bougainvillea. Roads appear. 
Signs. Turn Left Here. 
Paths and gardens of knowing 
form in the brain. Flowering vines 
perfume the air above the brain!
Finally, a world 
lives inside to be invoked, 
called forth like genie 
from bottle.
Every poem or story 
made one’s own 
initiates its keeper 
into the long line 
stretching back 
to ancient campfires.
Every teller chants with Homer, 
Valmiki, bards whose names 
we do not know, carries 
the Light in eyes 
onward.

	- Max Reif
 
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.sonic.net/pipermail/poetrylovers/attachments/20150724/549275d3/attachment.html>