This piece appears in the Los Angeles Review of Books Quarterly Journal: The Occult, No. 22
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¤
Concerning the Meaning Molecule in Poetry
Long ago a man told me, If you write poetry
keep your subjects small;
i was a tiny skinny girl at that point …
Much later, i heard a meaning molecule
in the call of a dove pretending to be an owl in the pine,
a song-speck circling in a thought throughout all time
(like the man said, extremely small!)
traveling from before literature
through the blue centuries until quite recently
when a radiant instance of the unknown
paused our bafflement but kept
that little meaning absolutely elusive, & erotic …
for AC & NS
¤
Brenda Hillman is the author of 10 collections of poetry. The most recent is Extra Hidden Life, Among the Days.
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