Wallace Stevens' Writing Of 'of Mere Being' Poem by Dennis Ryan

Tuesday morning, May 22,2018

'It is only that this warmth and movement are like
The warmth and movement of a woman.'
- Wallace Stevens, from 'The Woman in Sunshine'

'Too actual, things that in being real
Make any imaginings of them lesser things...
So sense exceeds all metaphor...'
- Wallace Stevens, from 'Bouquet of Roses in Sunlight'

When a man is alone,
all alone, alone in his head,
he writes 'Of Mere Being'
and poems like it. The palm
at the end of the mind,
the real one, is located
in Key West— as far south
as Stevens would get—
warmth and seduction
are what Stevens craved,
and he alludes to them
in poem after poem. It is only
that this warmth and movement
belong to a body, a face
like Nausicaa's, her beauty—
that slip of palm in sunlight
that Odysseus observed—
that's what Stevens wanted.
In the half-light of early morning,
my hand lay on my wife's hip,
and could sense her breathing;
if anything is 'holy', this is;
her hand took his and drew
him to her, her hair fell...
Now I understand why Jesus
kept Mary Magdalene close,
and other women as well,
perhaps, that the Bible
never accounted for:
soul finds itself
at close quarters.