On Finding Meaning:

 

 

 





 

The Road

Herbert Morris

I like the story of the circus waif

bought by the man-of-weights to be his mistress,

Profit the demon dragging her to market

and Lust the soul who paid in lire for her.

I like the peculiarities of her faith,

the startling quality of that innocence,

kissing the hand that dealt her cruelty

believing, poor and dumb, that this was love.

I relish a destitution stripped to sing

pure in a voice all passion and denial:

such are the driven burning by their breath

more than mere air allows and cold permits.

I savor my own involvement and concern

lest all the transformations seem unreal,

lest love be painted water-sweet and classic

rather than salt and anguish to the end.

I like her squatting in the village road

combing the dust for something of her own,

coming away belonging and committed,

roots to be cherished, stones she could befriend.

And what I like the subtlest and profoundest

is that the circus traveled grief to grief

educating the waif into a woman

loving and beautiful and fiercely proud.

I think of the sense of fury in that road,

stooping to scratch the earth out for a life

somewhere awaiting finding in one’s name.

I like that, and I like the word Expense.

I think of the years together which they had,

the strong-man working her into the act,

that hint, despite himself, of some devotion.

I like that, and I like the ring of Cost.

Not in a root, or stone, but in a man

she found a thing to hold her tenderness.

I like her dedication after that,

her saying, if she spoke, I live by this.

And what I like pervasive and forever

is that my eyes have wept the tale before,

wanting the telling not so much as story

but for the way the waif befits my life.



-from Peru

 

 

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