(DERVISH ESSAY)
LIGHT UPON LIGHTLY
ROBERT D. VIVIAN
LIGHT UPON LIGHTLY
ROBERT D. VIVIAN
To live lightly upon the earth as any leaf, feather, or rainbow, to leave almost nothing behind but a sigh, a whisper, a single poem entitled Love or Brook Trout, to move while I am able like a deer at the edge of a tree line, like a hare in winter over deep, crystalline snow, all fur, all wide-eyed attention and in this attention the glory of the world, to forsake wealth and privilege and wear a belt made of frayed rope, to wear sandals fashioned out of old tire treads, to live so lightly my very eyelashes turn into commas between words of rapturous praise, to live so lightly I become/turn into light, the opening doorway kind, shaft of sunlight and rays of glory, so light upon lightly lighting the way for someone, anyone, even brother titmouse and sister sparrow, the cardinal who somehow appeared in a snowstorm in early March, a little bright dab of bleeding suffusing the whole continent, the whole world, bright singing bird whose beauty is manifest-ever-trust-ever-forever, whose cause and glory we will never understand, fathom nor dissect in a textbook, perfect bird-color singing in ice and wind for no reason though maybe the whole earth is the reason and the power and the glory and the rain-soaked dream, maybe my own fingers scrawling these words, light upon lightly the holy cardinal now in recent memory saving me so vivid I swear she was an angel delivering a message of kingdom come, kingdom here now in the shocking present moment, her very redness a sacrament and a shining and the delicate lattice work of her bones, oh, may it finally, verily come to us to make our own wings out of balsa wood, Styrofoam cups, anything light and airy and full of light like even, my love, this very page whose very ghost drifted down from a slain tree to sing and sigh of breeze again, north wind, this very breathing and dripping black ink, deep witness that fills the roots and pushes them to grow toward the one true light beckoning them with a whole body of brightness, a wound and a womb, primal throat of the first life and utterance, speaking for the first time.
Robert D. Vivian is the author of The Tall Grass Trilogy, Water And Abandon and two meditative essay collections, Cold Snap As Yearning and The Least Cricket Of Evening. His first poetry book is called Mystery My Country--and he's co-written a second called Traversings with the poet Richard Jackson. He teaches at Alma College and as a core faculty member at The Vermont College Of Fine Arts.
Robert said this about his work: "The beautiful Finnish-Swedish poet Edith Sodergran once wrote that 'What do I fear? I am a part of infinity.' Somehow this aligns perfectly in the writing of dervish essays."
Robert said this about his work: "The beautiful Finnish-Swedish poet Edith Sodergran once wrote that 'What do I fear? I am a part of infinity.' Somehow this aligns perfectly in the writing of dervish essays."
