Two Poems

Michael Evans

mrevans@delphi.com

 

The Behavior of Bodies, the Motion of Clocks

 

An orbit is a way of keeping time--
                                        not a metaphor
for life
         together with another life--a body and a body
at odds with the room's linear constraints.

(The room itself is not a metaphor
                                                   for how we live.)

The bed does not unfold like two hands
--one circling
                         the other
and transparent--
as if loneliness (the beating silence of these days
         he lives without speaking) were enough

to suggest that time and distance are measured
with the same equation.
                            At night, he sets the clock
to an hour
             that already exists
                                      (thinly, as light)

beyond the orbits he understands--
                               the comings and goings
of doctors, this routine of pills.
He listens
to the elliptical path
                                     of his breathing
and he knows the universe will not collapse
in time to save his youth

(for yourself, sir, shall grow old as I am,

if like a crab you could go backward).

He dreams himself a young man,
                                       but wakes to nothing
less than he is.
He is not allowed a mirror and does not look

at his hands. Breathing, he counts
himself to sleep.
    Were he a crab, he would give up this shell.

 

The Love Songs of Leonardo da Vinci

 

1 Between the Eye and the Object Seen There is another kind of perspective which, by the atmosphere, in a single line of the same size, is able to distinguish the remotest (as a couple) and represent them in a picture –between my eye and them– more than another and a somewhat equal– them and the same density of them and in a single line make them appear and almost of the same as the atmosphere. There is a perspective which the atmosphere attracts to them– their images exist– and not their forms merely. There is a kindness between them able to make the nearest above and of its same color, the more distant bluer. Between the single line of them, between the eye and moon of them– without suffering– they are the same. Among them, a rose does the same and other perfumes. 2 Spechio In the mirror of the room, these two (their bodies) stand among the others, apart– in the light from a single window, they are the same (equal and almost) –if each should notice the other (their shadows opposite the window) in the mirror above the sofa– should see (as if distance is abbreviation) the other at an angle that is the angle of the body– if each should touch the glass to touch the other, isn’t it the other who will understand this distance between them?– (the other reaching out to touch) the eye of the other (in the mirror) will see him (his finger on the glass) touching his own. 3 On the Cause of Generation No part of the body is always the same. The shadow of the other and of the self like two hands in front of a candle– which one is twice as dark? Which one moved across the body moves more slowly? I will not breathe within the light leaking through the curtain and the reflection of the moon. There is proportion to the breadth of shadow–the nearer, the deeper it appears (as light, only opposite). But if direct, how long before the eye sees at a distance another shadow move the body such that light is of an equal size? At that moment, stars take on the shape of stars and the angle of the skin is impossible to compass. It’s the calculus of living that we need. Touch me. Touch the surface of these bodies placed next to each other– the same and nearly opposite. Come in and mingle with them.