Poem of the Week 3/21/2005: Permanently

Permanently

One day the Nouns were clustered in the street.
An Adjective walked by, with her dark beauty.
The Nouns were struck, moved, changed.
The next day a Verb drove up, and created the Sentence.

Each Sentence says one thing - for example. "Although it was a dark
rainy day when the Adjective walked by, I shall remember the
pure and sweet expression on her face until the day I perish from
the green, effective earth."
Or, "Will you please close the window, Andrew?"
Or, for example, "Thank you, the pink pot of flowers on the window
sill has changed color recently to a light yellow, due to the heat
from the boiler factory which exists nearby."

In the springtime the Sentences and the Nouns lay silently on the grass.
A lonely Conjunction here and there would call, "And! But!"
But the Adjective did not emerge.

As the adjective is lost in the sentence,
So I am lost in your eyes, ears, nose, and throat -
You have enchanted me with a single kiss
Which can never be undone Until the destruction of language.

Kenneth Koch


Hello friends and family! Now, it was definitely time for this Koch poem - I have loved it for a long time and it just felt right, what with springtime and wedding and best friends and mothers and all. Some things I like about it: of course, words as people or beings, with personalities and feelings of their own, the hilarious, formalized example-sentences, and the end of the poem. It's so interesting how he uses adjectives in the sentences - they would be more boring without the adjectives (in this poem the symbols of love/skeletons on which Koch drapes love). That's pretty awesome - adjectives (love) are both the color of our sentences and our lives. Koch ties that into the poem in the last stanza talking about the connections of language and life, and the permance of both. Language is immortal in the sense that it will (presumably) be around so long as humans are, so love (adjectives) will be around as long as humans are. All kinds of love - the Greeks called it philia, eros, agape (loosely family, erotic, divine love, implying love defined as an emotion, a desire, and a commitment). It is interesting to think of all of the different kinds of love that there are, and how much of it there is everywhere. I digress, as usual, but maybe that's what I would just like to leave you all with this week - love, language and good night!

Sarah