[1045] The Body Reclining

Guest poem submitted by Devyani Saltzman,
<devyani.saltzman@>:

I sing the body reclining
I sing the throwing back of self
I sing the cushioned head
The fallen arm
The lolling breast
I sing the body reclining
As an indolent continent

I sing the body reclining
I sing the easy breathing ribs
I sing the horizontal neck
I sing the slow-moving blood
Sluggish as a river
In its lower course

I sing the weighing thighs
The idle toes
The liming knees
I sing the body reclining
As a wayward tree

I sing the restful nerve

Those who scrub and scrub
incessantly
corrupt the body

Those who dust and dust
incessantly
also corrupt the body

And are caught in the asylum
Of their own making
Therefore I sing the body reclining

	-- Grace Nichols

"liming": West Indian expression for standing around, idling away the time.

What can I say... I was sitting in the library all day reading evolutionary
biology when I picked an anthology of Grace Nichols' poetry off the shelf.
She's a poet and writer from Guyana and has the most lovely flowing style.
All I can say is this poem is my new motto.

Devyani.

From: Suresh Ramasubramanian <suresh@>

+++ Abraham Thomas [03/05/02 03:05 +0900]:
> Guest poem submitted by Devyani Saltzman,
> <devyani.saltzman@>:
>  "The Body Reclining" 
>  I sing the body reclining

[...]

This "I Sing" does sound a bit familiar to me, but I haven't seen it in all
that many poems.  Hmm... ahh yes.

 Arms, and the man I sing, who, forc'd by fate,
 And haughty Juno's unrelenting hate,
 Expell'd and exil'd, left the Trojan shore.
 Long labors, both by sea and land, he bore,
 And in the doubtful war, before he won
 The Latian realm, and built the destin'd town;
 His banish'd gods restor'd to rites divine,
 And settled sure succession in his line,
 From whence the race of Alban fathers come,
 And the long glories of majestic Rome.
 [...]
		(Virgil's Aeneid, trans.  by John Dryden)


-- 
Suresh Ramasubramanian + suresh <@> kcircle.com
Friday@ + http://www.kcircle.com
Philadelphia is not dull -- it just seems so because it is next to
exciting Camden, New Jersey.

From: "Anustup Datta" <anustupd@>

For the inspiration to the poem and a rather obvious comparison, please
refer Walt Whitman's "I sing the body electric" at
http://www.bartleby.com/142/19.html

Regards
Anustup