Divining the Landscape
After the Concert
“Real singing is a different movement of air. Air moving around nothing. A breathing in a god. A wind.” -Rilke
You become more careful
walking through a room
where music is playing.
Don’t make the record skip,
the earth is tipping already.
Step slowly,
like wading through an island
of white campion,
the sky misted with a low wind
and sea birds.
The world is now understood.
Beyond the sound that opens
the body into weightlessness-
a shadow lingers
in the region of the heart
that can’t retreat-
a burning reflection of a storm
bursting,
leaving behind silent flowers
heavy with hunger.
Contact Diane for Readings
$12.00
“Diane Jarvenpa tells us there are things we cannot see: how flowers grow, what the prairie dreams, how summers come, where muskrats go. She honors too the complexities of the people closest to her, like her immigrant grandparents and her parents. She knows there are some things that can only be explained with poetry. That is why these poems begin with words but always end in music.” -Jim Johnson, author of Wolves
