Self Portrait: Near Sherwood, Pastel, by John Cummings
Self-Portrait in Stone
Borne from a creek bed I am ragged rock
that darkens when water-covered.
A pale rendition of my future self
languished dry on the window sill
a gray keepsake token of affection
purgatory for swirling dust
and dreamt of soft ground mulching
what is long done and what is left undone.
I’ve dragged myself through wet grass
to clean myself from all matters.
Now stranded at the stream’s edge
my hand dipped in roiling snowmelt
the woodpecker telegraphs
its message you were lost.
The bees discover I proffer no pollen.
The leeches disregard me
while they hunt toadlets recently emerged
before finding the woods’ shelter.
My fear is I’ll break down into gravel
taken into a bird’s gizzard
helping grind down hard seeds and turn
small rounded smoothed polished.
_________________
David A. Goodrum
Review by Massimo Fantuzzi
Though there was land and sea and air, it was unstable land, unswimmable water, air needing light. Nothing retained its shape, one thing obstructed another, because in the one body, cold fought with heat, moist with dry, soft with hard, and weight with weightless things. (From Ovid, The Metamorphoses)
Freedom of movement at its best, I could stop here. The transformative journey towards completion and realization, do’s and don’ts. A refreshing approach to the ever-nagging, always contemporary refrain, “know thyself”. A refrain that (probably for marketing reasons) has slowly mutated into, “box yourself”, “corner yourself” into a classification (yes, I read Michel Foucault). This poem guards us against that insidious process. We are no good for bees, no good for leeches, and that’s okay; we cannot and we won’t cut ourselves into shape, we won’t smooth or reframe our raggedy nature and prevent it from developing freely. Honorary citizenships, fairy tales of maturity, a whole round regulation (from Latin regō = rule, straight): they don’t interest us. A rejection of the canon that from priests to psychiatrists, lawmen to parents has followed the evolution of mankind since its dawn: the idea of having to find a place and fit in some sort of masterplan, all under the threat of rejection and exile from the hive (a tale as old as Adam and Eve and their alleged grave disobedience), and with the carrot of the common good, the personal gain, heavenly reward, you name it. What is the price tag attached to our flat adherence to this or that clan, structure, and who will foot the bill and is it worth it? This poem invites us not to fall for the easy taxonomies, but to think, to carve our own, unique path, unafraid to turn in an unknown, even restless shape which is quite the opposite from the shapeless construct we are daily pushed to disappear into. To choose the otherwise. To embrace metamorphosis whenever we encounter it, in ourselves and in our neighbor. To not fear or shame solitude or marginalization. In this, the woodpecker knows us too well – without our individuality we were lost.
Review by Zeke Sanchez
“Self-Portrait in Stone” is one of those poems that concentrates meaning into polished phrases. If it has any cliches, they fit so well that not a one caught my eye. The ragged rock speaks of its “future self” which in the end it “fears” becoming. It fears becoming a “small rounded smoothed polished” stone. It is the journey of a ragged rock but I suppose it stands in for the journey of an emblematic human being. It’s as if the stone had legs, though we know it is not that the stone walks or runs but that nature itself, the rain and wind perhaps, that has dragged it through the “wet grass to clean myself from all matters.” Interesting in that the stone cleans itself, which in a human may mean contemplation, prayer or meditation. Enjoyed it.