September 29: Poet of the Week, Lisel Mueller, "On Finding a Bird's Bones in the Woods"

REMINDER:  SIX MORE DAYS UNTIL SAINT MARTY'S DAY

Some poets really seem to strip away the skin and muscle of everyday life to examine the skeleton of the universe.  That's when a poem is really great.  When it feels like you've somehow glimpsed the fabric of time and space.  The mind of God, if you will.

As a poet, I can say it's a tremendous gift when my words fall into place and reveal a deeper truth.  Call it what you want.  Inspiration.  The muse.  Grace.  The Holy Spirit.  Luck.  It's as if I'm a conduit in moments like that, simply a mouthpiece for something bigger than myself.  I don't mean to get all mystical.  I'm not Saint John of the Cross.  I'm Saint Marty of the Upper Peninsula.

The Poet of the Week this time is Lisel Mueller, and she has a poem in her collection Alive Together about seeing/sensing the bones of existence.

Saint Marty has to go to a meeting of Mystics Anonymous now.

On Finding a Bird's Bones in the Woods

by:  Lisel Mueller

Even Einstein, gazing
at the slender ribs of the world,
examining and praising
the cool and tranquil core
under the boil and burning
of faith and metaphor--
even he, unlearning
the bag and baggage of notion,
must have kept some shred
in which to clothe that shape,
as we, who cannot escape
imagination, swaddle
this tiny world of bone
in all that we have known
of sound and motion.

God has a sense of humor, too