Angela Sorby, “Mountain of Names”

I’m bad with names, so as I push forty,
I forgive myself for hiking lower Rainier

past lots of biggish, greyish birds

that I can’t describe more precisely.
Tit for tat: the birds don’t know
my species name, either. Homo sapiens,
nor my “common” moniker, Angela,
which means “messenger from God,”
nor are they aware of my medicinal uses,
spelled out on my organ donor card.

It’s a spring day, dizzy with ignorance.

The ash in this meadow’s volcanic (I guess)
except for the one-tenth of one percent
that used to be my grandmother.
We scattered her here with no marker,
and field guides don’t list her new name,

now that she’s crossed over
from the humanities to the life sciences?
Is ash a mineral?
Is death implicit in the periodic table
If I could coin a word for this meadow,
part grandmother, part volcano, I’d keep mum.
The mountain’s most itself when darkness
veils its glacier, the way key messages

transmit themselves,

sans messenger.

Bird Skin Coat is the 24th winner of the Brittingham Prize in Poetry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison English department. The collection also includes “Dove and Dove” (from The Sycamore Review). Her previous collection, Distance Learning, included “Really Barely There” (which has been reimagined as an online animation) and “Museum Piece” (from Old Hag).

Last week, Sorby had an April Fool’s article at the Chronicle of Higher Education, written from the perspective of the near future, recalling how the humanities survived our economic condition. Among the highlights:

“After the collapse, academic presses began publishing tenure books online, keeping the rigorous review process but axing production costs. As an added bonus, authors who hated their book designs or colors were given password-protected access to their cover pages, so they could change them at will. Book designers were thrown out of work, until everyone realized the horrific aesthetic consequences of allowing academics to act as art directors. By 2014, book designers were back at work, but now they are paid more than cardiologists.”

9 April 2009 | poetry |