[lit-ideas] Tenth Psalm

  • From: JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Wed, 13 Apr 2005 00:29:21 EDT

Out of some combination of sheer pig-headedness, total stubbornness,  
compulsion, I found the poem I wanted.  If I confess that over the last  decade 
of 
accessing the internet I have accumulated at least 3 dozen loose-leaf  
notebooks 
of printouts, organized by subject (poetry, literature, Greek  Orthodoxy, 
Western Philo, Kabbalism, etc.) I hope no one will find me and have  me 
committed.  So now, having located The Poem, I cannot restrain myself  from 
typing it 
here.  I would be interested in knowing whether it is  commonly known, as the 
Love Song of Alfred J. Prufrock, or considered  obscure.  I think I'm narrowing 
down my taste in poetry to the combination  of the atavistic and the 
esoteric....  I realize this is not "my" poetry  day on the ca lender, but I 
don't 
even know the date at this point.  There  are poems which one loves when young 
and out-grows; others which one does not  appreciate until older.  This one, 
for 
some reason, has resonated with me  since teenage-hood and I suspect will 
until the nursing home comes for me.
 
"TENTH PSALM
 
Anne Sexton
 
 
For as the baby springs out like a starfish into her million light
years Anne sees that she must climb her own mountain.
 
For as she eats wisdom like the halves of a pear she puts one 
foot in front of the other.  She climbs the dark wing.
 
For as her child grows Anne grows and there is salt and
cantaloupe and molasses for all.
 
For as Anne walks, the music walks and the family lies down 
in milk.
 
For I am not locked up.
 
For I am placing fist over fist on rock and plunging into the 
altitude of words.  The silence of words.
 
For the husband sells his rain to God and God is well pleased 
with His family.
 
For they fling together against hardness and somewhere, in
another room, a light is clicked on by gentle fingers.
 
For death comes to friends, to parents, to sisters.  Death comes
with its bagful of pain yet they do not curse the key they were
given to hold.
 
For they open each door and it gives them a new day at the
yellow window.
 
For the child grows to a  woman, her breasts coming up like 
the moon while Anne rubs the peace stone.
 
For the child starts up her own mountain (not being locked in)
and reaches the coastline of grapes.
 
For Anne and her daughter master the mountain and again
and again.  Then the child finds a man who opens like the sea.
 
For that daughter must build her own city and fill it with her 
own oranges, her own words.
 
For Anne walked up and up and finally over the years until 
she was old as the moon and with its naggy voice.
 
For Anne had climbed over eight mountains and saw the children
washing the tiny statues in the square.
 
For Anne sat down with the blood of a hammer and built a
tombstone for herself and Christopher sat beside her and was
well pleased with their red shadow."
 
Julie Krueger
========Original  Message========
Subj: [lit-ideas] Re: EASTER SUNDAY POEM  Date: 4/12/05 10:58:28 P.M. Central 
Daylight Time  From: _JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxxx (mailto:JimKandJulieB@xxxxxxx)   
To: _lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx (mailto:lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx)   Sent on:    
Mike, you've read entirely too much Sexton.   I can't help be reminded  of 
"Jesus Raises Up The Harlot", "Rowing",  "The Rowing Endeth", and  "Frenzy", 
or I 
will be forced to inflict them  upon the list.  I  do wish I could locate a 
poem of Sexton's which  I treasured for years, never had  in a book but only 
on a 
print-out,  and can  no longer find on-line --  I think it's called the Tenth 
 
Psalm.  I must go to the local bookstore and  peruse all the  collected works 
of 
hers until I find it.
Julie  Krueger


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