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University of Northern Iowa
August Translation, IdahoAuthor(s): Bill BrownSource: The North American Review, Vol. 292, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue (Mar. -Apr., 2007), p. 25Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25478874 .
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NAR
KATHARINE GREGG
Still Life With Motion
Beautiful as flamingos the girls ride a swing wide enough for the gods. They perch four along the seat and two on either end to pump from side to side. Above, the ropes narrow perspectively into what
could be a baobab. The pink silk of the saris?except one anomalous black?
like wings against the watery coolness of the leaves and, beyond, a commonplace house and car in the heavy Indian sun.
Not Fragonard's coy Mademoiselle
posed on her swing in orchid froth of petticoats, while one foot kicks its ridiculous slipper. Here all is angled motion of swing and dusky feet tucked out of harm and hands like flowers at the ends of long-stemmed arms.
Notice the tiger in the crouching girl at the high end?the joyful thrust of feet to legs, knees to thighs, how the fabric strains over the haunches but streams free
behind, in the rush of flight?all arrested by the shutter's eye while tree, house, and car blur giddily.
Then, shutter closed, the swing
drops to its predicted arc, and trees
leaves, house and car again suffocate in ordinary Indian heat.
But look closely, you'll see six
pink and black flamingos rise to the ropes' vanishing point, through dusty leaves into a lapis sky? a new brand of angel on sari wings.
BILL BROWN
August Translation, Idaho
I saw desert sage give way to ponderosa,
great trees caressed by canyon thermals,
unmoved by snow-tipped peaks of the Sawtooth.
I heard the mumble of late summer:
lightning's ascent and the shrill calls of elk to their calves, of wolves,
stars and the surprise of rain.
This prayer must have heartened
marmots, nighthawks, and otter
in their anguish over the hardening earth. What I felt was unsympathetic and soothing as blood draining into sand,
and coyote pups raising muzzles to celebrate a kill, a healing-over, like lichen on a creek stone or a scab
on a wound. And what I knew was
not knowledge, but ruthless and sensual
as ospreys saying their names to rivers,
final and endless as the flutter of aspens, the drift of cottonwood and cliff swallows
holding back the night with wings.
March-April 2007 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 25
This content downloaded from 195.34.79.174 on Sun, 15 Jun 2014 00:24:27 AMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
