Day six brings us Sage Cohen, author of Writing the Life Poetic, with a poem entitled “Algorithm.”

THOUGHTS ABOUT THE POEM

Is there an effective method for carrying on through life? A finite sequence of instructions we can use to process and calculate our many fields? I’m not sure, and neither is Sage, though she gives us a wonderful way to chew on the topic with the following poem that lifts off the page (and screen, for that matter), takes flight in an instant, then sends us inward contemplating the bird “who stopped trying.”

Algorithm


Gravity borrows her name
from the bird who stopped trying.
He said the poem was a hinge,
that a bird fell into her womb
from the well. There is no law
that can convince me
otherwise. Call in
the scientists if you must
and name their theories
after themselves.
Our entire lives, after all,
are comprised of the world
looking back at us from beyond
our reach and saying this
is who you are.
Names the place markers
of what was last believed possible.
The dead tree leaps
across the water,
free of root.
I’m building up a tolerance
for the absence of proof.
Maybe there is some
straight line somewhere
confining us to the literal, but I
saw the bird’s fear as something
useful, her blindness a kind
of guidance.

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A Poet a Day is a month-long celebration of poets and poetry, in honor of National Poetry Month. Writers reserve all rights to their work, and all work appears with their permission.

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