Week 11: BESTOW

The Shepherd
for Ernesto Trejo

The grasses begin where he begins
The descent home,
A harp swung over his left shoulder,
The moon over the other.
At his waist, a small satchel
Of jicama and a long nostril of turnip.

Kin to the felled tree,
The collapsed stone,
The three-legged chicken pickled and showing
In a cellar of the poor,
He is returning at
The pace at which the sun untangles itself

By the moon's laughter
The willow's desire to touch its feet.
There is no hurry, toss the trees.
Good Wood, Good Fire, fall the chinked coins of leaves.
Where he steps, the grasses rub
Their notched faces, whispering his name.

--Gary Soto

_____

Note: The word BESTOW is perhaps too hard? Too conceptual, too idea-based? What I was thinking of was OFFER—but I liked that BESTOW was mysterious—with good sound, but we don’t quite know what it means today—seems to carry a kind of gravitas—as in the weight of the past? In any case, my word choices are intuitive, so these counter-thoughts are part of the deal. If BESTOW stops you in any way, work from OFFER—as a way of focusing the meaning…

Apropos of the poem. Gary Soto (a wonderful poet, and a Californian) offers the poem as a kind of memorial to a friend, Ernesto Trejo. The way he connects the images with the physical world—and the notion of movement through the world—are my associations with BESTOW. But perhaps the word is too formal for the poem? Or maybe that’s why I chose the poem, to balance the formality of the word?  Can the poem return this formality (formality of society, of culture) to the world as lived—as moved through--that is, to the world of everyday experience?

Apropos of the drawing. I’m always amazed by how Corot is able to take us to such seemingly simple places-but with such profundity. The movement, again, in the trees—as a counter to the stability in the buildings in the distance… (human-made? human illusion? is there a difference?)

Or maybe you'll find BESTOW as evocative as I do?