THE NATURE OF BEAUTY - Alicia Ostriker

Alicia Ostriker

THE NATURE OF BEAUTY

I can only say, there we have been;

but I cannotsay where. --T.S. Eliot

As sometimes whiteness forms in a clear sky

To represent the breezy, temporary

Nature of beauty,Early in semester they started it.

Lisa read in her rich New Jersey accent,

That mixes turnpike asphalt with fast food,

A sexy poem that mentioned "the place

Where lovers go to when their eyes are closed

And their lips smiling."

Other students grinned,

Thinking perhaps of the back seats of Hondas.

Instead of explaining "place" as a figure of speech,

The teacher wanted them to crystallize

Around it as around the seed of a cloud.

You all understand that? You understand?

The place we go to? Where we've been? They got it.

All semester they brought it back

A piece at a time, like the limbs of Osiris.

Mostly from sex, for they were all American

Nineteen to twenty-one year olds

Without a lot of complicated notions.

But Doug got it from the Jersey shore,

Foam stroking his shins, his need

Leaping in fish form.

Robin One time from dancing

With a woman she didn't

Have sex with, once from her grandmother

Doing the crossword puzzle in pen.

Kindly David from a monstrous orange bus

Whose driver amazed him by kindliness

To passengers who were poor and demented.

Dylan from a Baptist church when song

Blent him into its congregation, sucked him

Into God, for a sanctified quarter hour,

"There's no separation at that height,"

Before it dropped him like Leda back to earth

And the perplexity of being white.

The vapor of the word collects,

Becomes cloud, pours itself out,

Almost before you think: the small

Rain down can rain.

A brief raid on the inarticulate

Is what we get, and in retreat we cannot

Tell where we've really been; much less remain.