Wednesday, July 6, 2016

Take the A Train

They used to put short poems and excerpts from classic literature up in the subway -- Poetry in Motion they called it. I read this on the ACE my freshman year at NYU and scribbled it down (before Google was so prevalent you only had to remember key words for later). It used to get stuck in my head and I'd say it over and over again. I love the sound of it. It laid dormant in my brain for many many years until it came back again a few months ago. 

God I love poetry. Good poetry that's like an all out game of tag... Just out of reach and then you catch up to it, and grab it, and its meaning is revealed to you. This one is mostly just fun to say, and that has its reasons for existing too. 

Plus, it's peach season. Go get one and honor the moment with one of the earths juiciest fruits. 

Peaches 

A mouthful of language to swallow:
stretches of beach, sweet clinches,
breaches in walls, pleached branches;
britches hauled over haunches;
hunched leeches, wrenched teachers.
What English can do: ransack
the warmth that chuckles beneath
fuzzed surfaces, sweet velvet
richness, plashy juices.
I beseech you, peach,
clench me in the sweetness
of your reaches.

-Peter Davison

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