20040628
commerce and the man - ricardo m. de ungria
Today’s Market-in the-Loop finds the poet sitting
by the only table between the stalls.
White hair, crossed legs, cigarette in shaky hands
and a pacific professional half-smile
(unpoetlike, a gift from cheery depths)
indicate a daily serious business at hand.
He suns himself in the mid-morning
give-and-take of shopper and seller,
the paper bags flapping open, money
changing hands, the smell of barbecue
fighting off the piscene fumes from the fish shop.
Some come prepared with lists, while others pick
on the spot, helped by their wives’ mnemonics.
They might know him by hearsay or by sight,
but they try to politely ignore him.
They can’t know possibly what to say to him,
or how approach him best without dissolving
the spell he seems lost in. And besides,
what has poetry to do with produce?
Their hands move past the bruised tomatoes
and into the okras and peppers and beans,
or else lift bananas to check on ripeness
and spots.
Yet they eye him from where they stand,
struck by his solitude’s unstirring gaze,
to see if he has caught on to their lives
and arrived at a good-old-rule-of-heart or two.
They feel absorbed in some ungospel truth,
some form of shapelessness they’re living out
this very moment in someone else’s eyes.
They feel contingent and cared for, eventful
and serviceable, themselves and not themselves.
Even the most philosophical and most revised
of them will say, This must be how it is—to be
just a word taking place among the human elements,
trying to mean even when no one is looking.
What life could I be leading in the poem
he is now making? What exception or rule
do I begin to share with that woman with zucchinis,
or this french bread, or those jars of mustard,
or the price tags stapled on the wooden beams?
When he gets up to go, what of me does he bring?
Will he write his poem? Can I recognize myself
when I read it? Can I say at least
I was there? Is there life after the poem?
Should it matter to me, or to anyone here?
When he pays and gets his change and takes his bag,
he looks again and sees the poet gone.
It’ll be the death of me, he thinks, when I find
my thoughts expressed but clearer in his thoughts,
and my very words said in his own words
but more precise and musical than I
myself could ever manage. Then can I say
we’ve finally met without formal
introductions? or that we gave and we took
without real advantages? How can I
live my life placidly again? Already
I feel like a real living poet
but without the poet’s way with words. But
thank God it’s all over now. The world’s at large
again and this just another morning.
[ webpage ] ¶ 6/28/2004 10:56:00 PM
by the only table between the stalls.
White hair, crossed legs, cigarette in shaky hands
and a pacific professional half-smile
(unpoetlike, a gift from cheery depths)
indicate a daily serious business at hand.
He suns himself in the mid-morning
give-and-take of shopper and seller,
the paper bags flapping open, money
changing hands, the smell of barbecue
fighting off the piscene fumes from the fish shop.
Some come prepared with lists, while others pick
on the spot, helped by their wives’ mnemonics.
They might know him by hearsay or by sight,
but they try to politely ignore him.
They can’t know possibly what to say to him,
or how approach him best without dissolving
the spell he seems lost in. And besides,
what has poetry to do with produce?
Their hands move past the bruised tomatoes
and into the okras and peppers and beans,
or else lift bananas to check on ripeness
and spots.
Yet they eye him from where they stand,
struck by his solitude’s unstirring gaze,
to see if he has caught on to their lives
and arrived at a good-old-rule-of-heart or two.
They feel absorbed in some ungospel truth,
some form of shapelessness they’re living out
this very moment in someone else’s eyes.
They feel contingent and cared for, eventful
and serviceable, themselves and not themselves.
Even the most philosophical and most revised
of them will say, This must be how it is—to be
just a word taking place among the human elements,
trying to mean even when no one is looking.
What life could I be leading in the poem
he is now making? What exception or rule
do I begin to share with that woman with zucchinis,
or this french bread, or those jars of mustard,
or the price tags stapled on the wooden beams?
When he gets up to go, what of me does he bring?
Will he write his poem? Can I recognize myself
when I read it? Can I say at least
I was there? Is there life after the poem?
Should it matter to me, or to anyone here?
When he pays and gets his change and takes his bag,
he looks again and sees the poet gone.
It’ll be the death of me, he thinks, when I find
my thoughts expressed but clearer in his thoughts,
and my very words said in his own words
but more precise and musical than I
myself could ever manage. Then can I say
we’ve finally met without formal
introductions? or that we gave and we took
without real advantages? How can I
live my life placidly again? Already
I feel like a real living poet
but without the poet’s way with words. But
thank God it’s all over now. The world’s at large
again and this just another morning.
[ webpage ] ¶ 6/28/2004 10:56:00 PM
