“Dido (The End of Falling)”

Today (November 15th) is a very frustrating day. It is made better by the fact that my brain wrote this sort of awful, sort of awesome poem on the BART this morning.

Maybe I spent too much of my weekend reading surrealist manifestos. I take no responsibility and/or credit for this attemt at automatic writing, which had as its prompt only the name “Dido.” We’re just going to ignore the fact that she, in The Aeneid, is actually not too fond of water.

—

“Dido (The End of Falling)”

Dido
queen of the seas
my mother was her lover.

   I don’t know what they saw
in each other, who
were never
meant to be tied to the land,
my feelings her feelings
the feelings
   of the soil.
There are times

in her eyes
the coming of the thing.
Tomorrow is the day when
   ships will wreck
when wretches roll, crows
afoot stop flying

And looking back was love
   enough to bind the heart
  who fell from trees, swooping,

   lowered, and never knew
   the end of falling.