Infinity doesn’t interest me
not altogether
anymore
I crawl and kneel and grub about
I beg and listen for
what can go away
(as easily as love)
or perish
like the children
running
hard on oneway streets/infinity
doesn’t interest me
not anymore
not even
repetition your/my/eye-
lid or the colorings of sunrise
or all the sky excitement
added up
is not enough
to satisfy this lusting adulation that I feel
for
your brown arm before it
moves
MOVES
CHANGES UP
the temporary sacred
tales ago
first bikeride around the house
when you first saw a squat
opossum
carry babies on her back
opossum up
in the persimmon tree
you reeling toward
that natural
first
absurdity
with so much wonder still
it shakes your voice
the temporary is the sacred
takes me out
and even the stars and even the snow and even
the rain
do not amount to much
unless these things submit to some disturbance
some derangement such
as when i yield myself/belonging
to your unmistaken
body
and let the powerful lock up the canyon/mountain
peaks the
hidden rivers/ waterfalls the
deepdown minerals/the coalfields/goldfields/
diamond mines close by the whoring ore
hot
at the center of the earth
spinning fast as numbers
I cannot imagine
let the world blot
obliterate remove so-
called
magnificence
so-called
almighty/fathomless and everlasting/
treasures/
wealth
(whatever that may be)
it is this time
that matters
it is this history
I care about
the one we make together
awkward
inconsistent
as a lame cat on the loose
or quick as kids freed by the bell
or else as strictly
once
as only life must mean
a once upon a time
I have rejected propaganda teaching me
about the beautiful
the truly rare
(supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
supposedly
the soft push of the ocean at the hushpoint of the shore
is beautiful
for instane)
but
the truly rare can stay out there
I have rejected that
abstraction that enormity
unless I see a dog walk on the beach/
a bird sieze sandflies
or yourself
approach me
laughing out a sound to spoil
the pretty picture
make an uncontrolled
heartbeating memory
instead
I read the papers preaching on
that oil and oxygen
that redwoods and the evergreens
that trees the waters and the atmosphere
compile a final listing of the world in
short supply
but all alive and all the lives
persist perpetual
in jeopardy
persist
as scarce as every one of us
as difficult to find
or keep
as irreplaceable
as frail
as every one of us
and
as I watch your arm/ your
brown arm
just
before it moves
I know
all things are dear
that dissapear
all things are dear
that disappear
June Jordan
”Directed By Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan”
pp. 203 - 206
