MI RITROVAI
My self was found by a darker self, obscure.
I was not one self, but made of wood
On into darkness. No
way to see for rest,
For all the trees, for all the terza rima.
Do? They all diverge
into the darkness,
Dive into darkness, urge to obscurity.
Into a swoon, svanire?
One cannot
Stand this, one cannot stand in the middle
Obscure greeting – salve – strange advice
From something dark and savage that nonetheless
Mi ritrovai per una selva oscura.
I back myself to the edge of a dark shelf.
So much deepens that one cannot stand
Here, in the middle of this mirror trove.
-- Jennifer Clarvoe
from The Antioch
_____________
Note by Judith Hall
Recognition haunts but may not edify,
not immediately, if “strange” or unsought:
Dante’s doubt; Moore’s
despair; Larkin’s beloved selfishness. Such blessings, such lessons -- nearly a
parody of succor -- are familiar and perverse: symbols Baudelaire would’ve
flung at any earnest reader: doubt,
despair, selfishness.
Blake thought
Dante saw clearly but did not always comprehend his visions. Clarvoe
comprehends the very postmodern terror of a “mirror trove.” Clarity, in this
context, is irrelevant. Obscurity, as in Monet’s late water lilies, or Dickinson's
circuits, tells a slanted truth no less enchanting for its complications.
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