Divining the DuPage
A poem about the DuPage River in Illinois
From the high clay of the home hill
To Herlein’s hearty bottomland,
along the DuPage River to the VFW,
then the long reach to Congregational ground
and back to the leached crown of your hill;
a slow progress over basement rock,
parsing impersonal beds of sediment,
standing waves of laval ooze, navigating
by sunken cars, by driven posts
I worry the good earth endlessly.
Wrinkling in distaste at toxic spills,
the asphalt apron of roads, I extract
goodness from grit (my enzymes equal
to hardpan’s hardtack), relish the rare earth’s
tincture of arsenic, tang of antimony.
Into invitational loam I graze:
Sweet cilia of roots, made food
of compost, compilations of decay.
It being given that I live supreme
in a dark of my own making, lambent
under barn’s manure, unseen by you
(unless by goose-stepping starling decapitate,
or straightened on your fishhook’s J)
the better to work the still earth of your mind,
I sculpt in the earth’s long cowl
a labyrinth of 20,000 leagues,
a hole continuous as history.
Extending with the motion of desire,
contracting as if shuddering,
see how I make love’s elemental move.
John Barr’s poems have been published in six books, four fine press editions, and many magazines, including The New York Times, Poetry, and others. John was also the Inaugural President of the Poetry Foundation. His newest book, The Boxer of Quirinal, was published by Red Hen Press in June 2023. You can view more of his work at johnbarrpoetry.com and on Instagram (@johnbarrpoetry). Buy the book.
