Resisting Metaphor
Resisting Metaphor
Jacob Stratman
After reading Jennifer Fueston Stewart, after listening to Mark Jarman, after running
Is it true: poetry is a gesture inward,
and prayer a gesture outward?
The poet seems sure in the interview
I listen to on an early morning
run, with sunrise beginning
to bounce life off haystacks, the color
of campfire marshmallows, color
like these fallow fields, welcoming me inward,
green coming to focus as day begins
to begin, and I’m stuck, neither in an outward
posture or accepting the invitation this morning
to reflect, intimate, or withstand an interview.
But what would the field ask if this were an interview?
How would the haystacks respond to the color
I choose to give them on this early morning
run? Must the metaphor always seep inward?
Does the sun care whether prayer is outwardly
gestured? O’Connor suggests ignorance is the beginning
of faith. I remember, once, standing creek side, beginning
to wonder, when I scared a bird just in view,
a black crowned night heron—the outward
expression of surprise and fear; the color
of attention; another invitation inward;
a symbol I ignored respectfully that morning.
It wasn’t big, like hawks, the color of mourning,
I see on wires above county roads, beginning
their day in lament. Although I resist inward
movement of any kind these days, any interview
with myself, especially on these discolored
roads I run, I know I’m invited outward,
to see birds and haystacks, outwardly
themselves on any given morning,
but the memory of those heron’s wings—working to color
everything for me, setting its self in flight, beginning
their motion before its body could begin an interview
with its own wings, even as I deflect (reflect?) inward—
urges prayer inward and outward—
asks me to interview the morning,
its beginning, my beginning, perhaps: a new color.
Jacob Stratman
Poet & Educator
Jacob’s What I Have I Offer With Two Hands is a part of the Poiema Poetry Series (Cascade, 2019). His most recent poems can be found (or forthcoming) in The Christian Century, Wordgathering, FreezeRay, Ekprhastic Review, among others. He lives and teaches in Siloam Springs, AR.
Photography by Beyza Kaplan