A Poem for a Thursday #230

Dana Gioia is an American poet, critic, translator, and essayist. He grew up listening to his mother reading and reciting poetry to him and thus “never considered poetry an intrinsically difficult art whose mysteries can only be appreciated by a trained intellectual.” While Gioia does write in free verse, he has long been considered a part of the literary movement called “New Formalism” which advocates the return to more traditional verse forms. Reviewer Kevin Walzer says of him “he works hard to give his metrical poems the colloquial quality of the best free verse, while his classicly trained ear gives his free verse a sure sense of rhythm that approaches a formal measure.”

Most of what happens happens beyond words.
The lexicon of lip and fingertip
defies translation into common speech.
I recognize the musk of your dark hair.
It always thrills me, though I can't describe it.
My finger on your thigh does not touch skin—
it touches your skin warming to my touch.
You are a language I have learned by heart.

This intimate patois will vanish with us,
its only native speakers. Does it matter?
Our tribal chants, our dances around the fire
performed the sorcery we most required.
They bound us in a spell time could not break.
Let the young vaunt their ecstasy. We keep
our tribe of two in sovereign secrecy.
What must be lost was never lost on us.

Marriage of Many Years
Dana Gioia