{"id":10961,"date":"2017-02-03T03:30:09","date_gmt":"2017-02-03T10:30:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/?p=10961"},"modified":"2017-02-02T18:16:27","modified_gmt":"2017-02-03T01:16:27","slug":"poetry-friday-bewilder","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/goodletters\/2017\/02\/poetry-friday-bewilder\/","title":{"rendered":"Poetry Friday: “Bewilder”"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\n

\"BelugaThis is a poem about scale, about the awesome power of the Creator, who in turn gave humanity the power to create. And it\u2019s about the power of a created being, and its potential to do good or evil. Here we have a whale sighting, her powerful fluke useable for constructive or destructive acts\u2014\u201cso many gestures\/\/ a fluke or fin can make with or\/ without ruin.\u201d Over time, the Leviathan has stood for evil of various kinds. Yet the bulk of the poem celebrates the whale\u2019s beauty without romanticizing or anthropomorphizing. Indeed, it makes deliberate strides against that temptation, admonishing: \u201cher eye deeply\/winking at my eye, no more\/ human for that.\u201d The poem affirms, if for no one else than for the speaker, that the whale was made for her own good purpose, for God\u2019s own good purpose, \u201cto sing\u2026 for enchantment and for love.\u201d The mystery of creation rises into view, immense, blinking its wild eye, and then disappears again, leaving our hearts pounding. Leaving us feeling more alive, as any good poem\u2014 creation\u2014ought to.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2014Melissa Reeser Poulin<\/em><\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u201cBewilder,\u201d by Katharine Coles<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

He made the Leviathan for the sport of it,<\/em>
\nThe Lord of my childhood. Her fluke<\/p>\n

The size of two sleek rowboats
\nFor lifting and drawing down<\/p>\n

Knifelike into the water
\nOr for slapping\u2014so many gestures<\/p>\n

A fluke or fin can make with or
\nWithout ruin. I remember<\/p>\n

A whale rolling sideways
\nJust\u2014it appeared\u2014so I could see her<\/p>\n

Waving or flirting, her eye deeply
\nWinking at my eye, no more<\/p>\n

Human for that. Can\u2019t
\nEven say she was real beyond<\/p>\n

The tide of my imagining or I
\nBeyond hers, so completely out<\/p>\n

Of scale were we, so soundly
\nDid she sink and finally not<\/p>\n

Come up. The Lord of my childhood
\nMade her to flirt and nurse, to sing<\/p>\n

But not to me, for
\nEnchantment and for love. Believing<\/p>\n

I am not superstitious, I make
\nHer like any muse<\/p>\n

To bewilder me, to say
\nAs the wave curls overhead cast<\/p>\n

Loose, be charmed, be lost, for
\nGod\u2019s sake remember, be wild.<\/p>\n

Psalm 104, for Lincoln Ure<\/i><\/p>\n

\"GL<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Katharine Coles<\/strong>\u2019s sixth poetry collection, Flight<\/em>, will be out from Red Hen Press in 2016. Recent\u00a0poems and essays have appeared in Virginia Quarterly Review<\/em>, Poetry<\/em>, andCrazyhorse<\/em>. A 2012\u201313\u00a0Guggenheim Fellow, she teaches at the University of Utah.<\/p>\n

Above image by tigrecanela, used with Permission under a Creative Commons<\/a> license.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is a poem about scale, about the awesome power of the Creator, who in turn gave humanity the power to create. And it\u2019s about the power of a created being, and its potential to do good or evil. Here we have a whale sighting, her powerful fluke useable for constructive or destructive acts\u2014\u201cso many […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1081,"featured_media":10962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3822],"tags":[1965,65,44,52,4008,1999,3755,324,981,1578,122,1945,4009],"class_list":["post-10961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-poetry-friday","tag-animals","tag-childhood","tag-faith","tag-god","tag-insight","tag-katharine-coles","tag-melissa-reeser-poulin","tag-memory","tag-mystery","tag-play","tag-poetry","tag-poetry-friday","tag-wildness"],"yoast_head":"\nPoetry Friday: "Bewilder"<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This is a poem about scale, about the awesome power of the Creator, who in turn gave humanity the power to create. 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