April 10, 2020 - David Need

Sleep was restless at that juncture between

lung and large intestine — an hour before the

dawn when the meridians

start back from the deep toward a surface —

I was thinking too much.

Outside, a moon in the west and

Jupiter — there seemed to be only one world and

the birds were starting;

I shut the door, had a bowl of yogurt and

blueberries — I made a map of this

though I didn’t want to find any of

it again — it’s just that you don’t know how

things become beautiful

but they do — so notes trace the

filaments, let’s say,

a possible incandescence.

The other worlds are not pretense but

hold off a bit — who knows why —

I go back to sleep as the day

comes on

a Good Friday I’ll climb up onto,

God’s love a thing I can’t say,

because, this way or that,

it’s nothing like

what makes sense.

Bio:

David Need lives in Durham NC and has taught Asian Religions and Religion and Literature there since 1997. He has published two collections of his own poetry and two of translations of Rilke. His current projects include translations of the poetry of Nelly Sachs; his academic writing has been on Rilke, Kerouac, Celan, Alice Notly, and Fanny Howe. His poetry has been published in Hambone, Talisman, Lana Turner and Heavy Feathers Review among others.