Explication of an Imaginary Text

Having finally finished tax season, I decided to treat myself to some new poetry books today. While the selection at my Barnes and Noble seemed somewhat limited, I did manage to select volumes by Ezra Pound, Marge Piercy and an intriguing volume by a poet that I had never heard of.

I’d never heard of James Galvin Resurrection Update: Collected Poems 1975-1997, but while browsing the book several poems immediately caught my attention. One of them somehow reminded me of the controversy that currently occupies my mind and my blogging entries:

Explication of an Imaginary Text

Salt is pity, brooms are fury,
The waterclock stands for primordial harmony.

The spruce forest, which is said to be
Like a cathedral
Indicates proliferation of desire.

The real meaning of the beginning
Will not become clear until later, if ever.

Things no longer being what they were,
Artifice poses as process,
The voice is tinged with melancholy.

The teacup, the brass knuckles, and the pearl-handled razor
Resist interpretation

As if to say
That half the wind is in the mind
And half in the mind of the wind.

Speaking through the character
Who comes to faith on his deathbed,

The author makes apology
For saying things he didn’t mean.
Little girl-cousins with ribbons in their hair

Confuse him with their names and are carried away
By laughter. Thus,

The force of love comes from belief,
Hate is from lack of doubt.
Paradox by paradox the narrative proceeds

Until half the stars are absolute tears.
The other half are mirrors.

While I realize this poem was intended to address a far greater problem than a temporary stumbling block in the development of blogs, there has certainly been a virtual fury as people have tried to “clean up” after recent revelations.

Perhaps it was merely the title that seemed strangely appropriate. Lately, I’ve been wondering if even I have been led to waste time explaining an imaginary text.

However, most of all, the lines, “Things no longer being what they were/ Artifice poses as process/ The voice is tinged with melancholy” somehow rings true. I doubt that the Kingdom of Blogaria will ever seem quite the same again, and I am overcome with a temporary melancholia for that lost kingdom, a kingdom, it turns out, that never was.

The “real meaning of the beginning” of this new form of blogging “will not become clear until later, if ever.” Though it may well be that a new form of blogging has begun, a form that will add new dimensions to this viritual community, right now it seems more like the end of an age of innocence.

“Paradox by paradox the narrative proceeds,” until it seems that “half the wind is in the mind/ And half of the mind is in the wind” and we are all uncertain how to react to truths and half truths that seem as ephemeral as the wind itself.