the national poetry month issue || generic
TRANSCRIPT
University of Northern Iowa
GenericAuthor(s): Barbara M. SeagleSource: The North American Review, Vol. 287, No. 2, The National Poetry Month Issue (Mar. -Apr., 2002), p. 11Published by: University of Northern IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25126741 .
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NAR
MARY MAKOFSKE
In a Book on Neolithic Wounds
In an ancient skull
a notch, sharp as the ax
blade that struck it, proves what men may recover from.
The fossil record shows
assault's long history and motives we divine: a neighbor's wrath,
a dispute over a slain
mastodon. Here is the tip
of an arrow lodged in a rib, but this ancestor
died of old age, gums spongy,
hardly a tooth left.
What had saved them?
Leaves and roots
they knew, part chemical,
part magic. The spells
they hung their lives on.
Miraculous, the body's own
healing powers, stitching wounds with scars
and throwing off infection.
Our toughness becomes
mythic. Flesh, nerves, pain worn off these clean
bones, these hard heads.
BARBARA M. SEAGLE
Generic
Dim, hazy room?three bands per night sweat forty minutes each on the small stage.
Patrons, friends, lean on the bar, gauge
the merits of the opening group. Mostly trite,
garage band noise. Generic's songs are tight,
loud, complex. My son, within his cage
of shining cymbals, toms, and snare, image
of joyful concentration, is out of sight behind the bassist and the lead.
His art
is rhythm: counting, marking time the sum
of life for him?even when his unborn feet
thumped out their first fandango on my heart.
When, as in this steamy, throbbing world, the beat was all?warm brine, jump-started by a drum.
March-April 2002 NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW 11
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