LAMENTATIONS

by David Eide

Aware, finally, that he can't write directly from his perfected thought to the perfected form, the poet begins to keep a journal that will detail what he is able to squeeze from the pernicious day. "Day!; rear up and away from the poets power before i destory it with aplomb; with the ease of some passing conversation heard while wating to board the sullen bus."

He knows who the people are going to see and what they are doing. It makes him anxious. He collects his impressions of the day in his journal. His day. The only one that will finally count for him. And as the pages of the journal increase they become the source of memory as well of the true record of the passage of his time.

After all, what other diversion can do it? He can't record the passing of the day through the possessions he accumulates. He can not mark off the passage of time through incidents in his career.

"I will record everything I feel and experience." His first entry.

The hidden memory of some book read or some conversation is embedded in many of the entries he has kept.

So, what is he going to write about? For a time it is a requirement to write about oneself and to detail the nature of the growing self as it occurs in the flashing sun, on the way to the water's edge. But is not the self one of many? Is there not a city outside the self that demands its articulation; its reality? And within this city exist a million selves, a million projects and deeds that pass in and out, unmoved by the observer of the scene. Nothing will pay him for the exquisite categories that wring out of precise images and thoughts in relation to things that bog down common humanity. Nothing will pay him except the spirit in things that requires nature to imagine as well as exploit.

Eternalities play on the community and are expressed in a variety of ways that all say it can be expressed no other way. Women carry the burden of these while the men go out and hunt for what is new.

"Something that would make the women think and the men imagine."

Something where the emotions could penetrate dance to the otherside boldly, without resistance.