this is what I found: from the Latin, vertere,
to turn, from the Lithuanian, versti, to overturn,

from the Sanskrit, vartate, he turns. Vers, fers:
turning, turning and bending, having planted

a length of beans or corn, having reached a furrow’s
end. Like a plowman, versing, this breaking up

of sod, this fashioning into tidy rows, helping the singers
recall their lines. When the need to memorize

disappeared, verse remained like the typewriter keys
spelling QWERTY, slowing the typist down. When I began

to dig, I found turn, turn back, be turned, convert, transform,
be changed. From wert: to wind, its cognate weard

(turned toward). When I began to dig I unearthed
wyrd (destiny, fate), found what befalls one, reached

down, pulled up Turn! Turn! Turn! A Pete Seeger tune,
a psalm. From Slovenia to Wales, from Greece

to Ireland: turn, turn,  stir, ladle, become. This verse,
this versus, likened to conversion, a breather,

a fresh start. Poet, like a plowman in a field
with his furrowed words, looking for a good excuse

to put up his brow, wipe his feet, reward herself
for making it this far. When I dug I found porridge,

bread (barley and rye), lentils, peas, eggs. Not much
meat. Small amount of vegetables and fruit. I found

oats; I found ale. What the digging revealed
was a single word meaning destiny and clean

slate, befalling fate yoked to the notion of free will.
To translate, become someone or something else.

In that plowman’s act, an apparent contradiction
as great as any yin and yang, koan-like conundrum,

that when we don binoculars to study a common
word, English sparrow of the lexicon, we find the link

between poetry and confrontations large and small—
tournaments, showdowns, battles—between a book

of poems, and Sunday’s nail-biting match-up
between the Seahawks and the Panthers. Versus,

a word connecting whatever force, power, or god
handed Marshawn Lynch his strength, his knack

for eluding the tackle, his Shakespearean grace,
and the task of the poet: to bury the weeds;

to disembalm the knotted, entwining roots,
the richest loam. To make, of the oldest question,

a song: are we free or are we not?

 

[Want more? Buy the issue in print or as an ebook]

Subscribe to Read More