Flow
(words from first & last lines, Adrienne Rich, Poems Selected and New 1950–1974)
In the autumn of dominion, hands
take and make, ocean moving
the blood beating through sunlight.
Call it need, call it will, living
tongues planted then lost — replaced
by leagues in the come and go. Illusionless
time, that colossus, zig-zags slowly through
its long room, swallows itself whole,
all things in its chopping-bowl.
This poem is part of a series, a prolonged challenge I set for myself. Vocabulary for each poem was taken from first and last lines of a poetry collection on my shelf. (The source appears beneath the poem’s title.) As I composed these, I allowed a couple diversions from the set vocabulary. I changed a verb tense or form of a word as needed. And on a few occasions, a word was added to complete a thought. I think of these as collage poems.
