{"id":5406,"date":"2013-03-02T10:21:03","date_gmt":"2013-03-02T15:21:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/?p=5406"},"modified":"2013-03-04T11:19:49","modified_gmt":"2013-03-04T16:19:49","slug":"death-is-a-wind-that-will-carry-you-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2013\/03\/death-is-a-wind-that-will-carry-you-off.html","title":{"rendered":"
‘Death Is a Wind That Will Carry You Off’<\/center>"},"content":{"rendered":"

This poem is not intended as a companion piece to “Music for the End of Time.”<\/a> The tone is entirely different, not at all apocalyptic. But it covers the same or similar ground, and I can’t help thinking that the difference in treatment is a merely a matter of temperament. Which is enough:<\/p>\n

<\/a>


Abbie Conant<\/p><\/div>Death is a wind that will carry you off
\nsometime before the following dawn.
\nIt may start with a lake-scented draft
\nfrom the cane break behind the house,
\nor a breeze through an open door
\nfilling your nostrils with your
\nmother’s party perfume: White Gardenia.
\nRolling over your body like a North Pacific wave:
\nthe remembering, bringing the end of time.
\nThe dying dog you fed, the crying child you
\ncomforted; these will stay in the panner’s mesh.
\nBut the soul-blackening betrayals will crumble away
\nwith time itself and the dark pockmarks of your
\nheart will fall like sad rain to the departing earth.
\nYour eyes will be as vast as the sky that opens
\naround you and you will wonder how they remained
\nso obediently in your head.
\nYour bones will be gone. Your head will leak into all
\nair, your hands become breath.
\nBelow, you will hear the weeping at the end of a bad opera.
\nIt will not occur to you that you could be missed by anyone.
\nYou will be following the irresistible scent of a rose
\nin full bloom not knowing you are in motion.
\nNot knowing you are nowhere to be found.<\/p>\n

—Abbie Conant<\/a>, 2009<\/strong><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Excerpted from 35 of Abbie Conant’s poems<\/a>, posted by William Osborne, her co-conspirator in life and music. He writes that he has collected her poems “from notebooks and scattered papers she leaves here and there.” There are published poets I’ve known who would turn green with envy at what she sheds. Here’s another from the scattering:<\/p>\n

I loll in time, bask in piles of minutes
\nthat I know will run out like tacks in a
\ncarpenter\u2019s jar.<\/p>\n

A whole day before me like a feast of hours,
\nembraces me in seeming eternity that darkens
\nat nightfall. <\/p>\n

I am left wondering at splashed stars on the
\nroof of being, the moon like an owl
\nlooking back at me as I stand in the cooling yard
\namong the sleepers stretched out in
\ntheir beds,
\nin tidy houses just far apart enough to not
\noffend like business men positioned just so in
\nan elevator.<\/p>\n

My time here is measured with your heartbeat.
\nYour eyes float in space, see me, are silent.
\nThey are beautiful when you remember to love
\nme, sere and punctured when you do not.<\/p>\n

I am an exoskeleton, whose fresh, winged life
\nis with you.<\/p>\n

Not here at all.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This poem is not intended as a companion piece to “Music for the End of Time.” The tone is entirely different, not at all apocalyptic. But it covers the same or similar ground, and I can’t help thinking that the difference in treatment is a merely a matter of temperament. Which is enough: Death is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-5406","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-literature","7":"entry","8":"has-post-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-1pc","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5406"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5406\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5406"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5406"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5406"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}