Tuesday, December 4, 2012

West River Parkway, Minneapolis, March 12, 2012



            —Stevie Wonder on the car stereo

more wetland
than river or
stream
our own bodies of rivulets and
capillaries
isles and
islands of organs
kidneys lungs
even skin

“heaven help the black man…
            heaven help the white man if he turns
                        his back away”
                                    —Stevie Wonder

the distances
of us, my daughter,
bridged by water
like these running
to New Orleans
& I know so well
those nerves
beside your mouth
that gnarled
sickness

I have been there, too,
                        & with you
            each time you
go there

“signed
            sealed
                        delivered”

but you
have always come through
shocked it into
happening
at the moment
of crisis

            & do nerves even matter
            at that point

I have failed so many times

            drenched
                        drenched
                                    these past
                                                weeks

but I, too,
have turned nervous
ticks and twitches
into small
triumphs

the philosopher Kant
speaks of the
sublime
as the realization
of our powers
to conceptualize
nature

this river shows me
he goes too far
            but he has a point

you & I together
in some ways
mightier
than the slow water

            “…superwoman…”
                       


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