Jody's Notes
"Squashed winter in a box," a bit of line from this poem. That was my choice for the title of my first book of poems. A friend of mine freaked out, described the choice as crazy, went through the book looking for a better bit of line from a poem. He chose "The Lust for Blueprints." I went with it, but I still wonder if my original choice would have been better.
Am I being ironic? Maybe. We know so much more now. Some of us, anyway. Collectively, anyway.
(Should we be proud of what we all know collectively? Each one of us should be proud? Isn't there something weird about that kind of pride?)
Irony? Because we have a shot--maybe for the first time--of a view from God's perspective. Collectively, I mean.
When the lonely comet
scraped like chalk
against the pockmarked night,
the marbled moon off-kilter:
medievals shrieked and ran.
But today,
who can avoid comparisons?:
each refrigerator (squashed winter
in a box) with its tamed lunchmeat;
the occasional mammoth (preserved
like steak) in its chunky glacier.
No doubt God has our perspective
(may he live forever too).
© 1997, 2001 Jody Azzouni