Jig
The Scots dance to it. Joiners swear by it.It orders time and space to new eventsWhich remind us that our forms and measuresAre inadequate to account for ourselves—I think I’ll sit this one out, if it’s all the same.
Dancing or building, one thing is always true:You must give yourself away to keep yourself—Otherwise, all that remains is chaos,Tangled limbs and mangled joints, abhorrentAs they betray the beauty that might have been.
My joinery is of words, thoughts, and feelings,All obstreperous and pernickety, Especially when caught fooling aroundTo make something no one has seen beforeAnd everyone covets to call his own.
But my joinery conserves the subject I produce by its ancient, proven routine—You have to do it twice to make it once:Every poem I write, I shape with a jigThat remembers the future with the present past.
Dancing or building, one thing is always true:You must give yourself away to keep yourself—Otherwise, all that remains is chaos,Tangled limbs and mangled joints, abhorrentAs they betray the beauty that might have been.
My joinery is of words, thoughts, and feelings,All obstreperous and pernickety, Especially when caught fooling aroundTo make something no one has seen beforeAnd everyone covets to call his own.
But my joinery conserves the subject I produce by its ancient, proven routine—You have to do it twice to make it once:Every poem I write, I shape with a jigThat remembers the future with the present past.
