Sole Blessing
To say screw them, to be screw-them
bent on one thing all but lost,
one music or mystery,
beyond all the necessary
incidental snaggings of the heart;
to train the whole soul’s beam
on a solitary hill, or on it
a special kind of rock or creeper;
to be sated just by saxophone;
to want nothing but your eyes
lifelong to study Scottish otters:
the snub, slippery-whiskered snout;
the way they intertwine in threes
at play, indistinguishably bound,
long sleek backs submerging away...
To make of this your being’s aim,
its joy, and know by pulse and viscus
the word joy. No gifts but thine
to thyself: thou canst, if thou list,
single out, make good, one wish.
This from the dumb lips of an old god
who with one endless, misty hand
holds out to us too much to love,
and with the other—crooked-fingered,
crazed with veins—some nights and days.
Copyright Credit: “Sole Blessing” from Misery Prefigured by J. Allyn Rosser. © 2001 by J. Allyn Rosser; reproduced by permission of Southern Illinois University Carbondale.
Source: Misery Prefigured (Southern Illinois University Press, 2001)