Mind

The slow overture of rain,
each drop breaking
without breaking into
the next, describes
the unrelenting, syncopated
mind. Not unlike
the hummingbirds
imagining their wings
to be their heart, and swallows
believing the horizon
to be a line they lift
and drop. What is it
they cast for? The poplars,
advancing or retreating,
lose their stature
equally, and yet stand firm,
making arrangements
in order to become
imaginary. The city
draws the mind in streets,
and streets compel it
from their intersections
where a little
belongs to no one. It is
what is driven through
all stationary portions
of the world, gravity's
stake in things, the leaves,
pressed against the dank
window of November
soil, remain unwelcome
till transformed, parts
of a puzzle unsolvable
till the edges give a bit
and soften. See how
then the picture becomes clear,
the mind entering the ground
more easily in pieces,
and all the richer for it.

~ Jorie Graham ~

(Hybrids of Plants and of Ghosts)


Biography of Jorie Graham (1950 - Present)

Jorie Graham was born in New York City in 1950, raised in Italy and educated in French schools. She studied philosophy at the Sorbonne and filmmaking at New York University before turning to poetry in her mid-20s. She is regarded as one of the leading voices in American poetry today. Graham has published six books of original poems over the past 20 years and edited several anthologies. Her volume of selected poems, titled The Dream of the Unified Field, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1996.