Evidence of Water
I walk the upstream line of water stain,
tattooed on rock, in the empty wash.
The stream bed widens, opens its mouth to speak,
knowing someone’s here who listens.
A whispered song where river once flowed
splashing notes on banks of larkspur blooms.
If I follow this line long enough will I reach its Source?
– Christine Stevens
Poets and poetry readers talk a lot about the turn or turns a poem makes. How does a poem set up an experience for readers and then make a shift or leap that adds depth or significance or surprise to that experience? These turns can be challenging to balance. Too little shift and the poem might feel obvious or monochromatic. Too much shifting and readers might get lost.
For me, this month’s poem by Christine Stevens showcases a fun approach to creating an unexpected turn. The poem is, at its core, a quest by a seeker to find a wellspring with all of the metaphorical significance of seeking such a source. The basic structure of a quest narrative can feel comfortable and familiar to many readers. The risk is that familiar becomes too familiar. But right away Stevens complicates the ordinary version of the quest narrative by (in the first line no less) situating the poem in a dry streambed. Has the source dried up? Why seek where there is no evidence of a spring? Lovely. Right from the beginning, the quest seems charged with the possibility that the seeker might not succeed.
And then at the stanza break, Stevens brings in another turn. Rather than finding water, the seeker finds song. Rather than a path to a point, the poem turns its attention to a fuller sensory experience surrounding the speaker. To find the source, the seeker first notices evidence of its existence around her. The source, by the end of the poem, feels present for the speaker even if the streambed remains dry. And so the poem now invites readers to experience the world around us as full even when the path we are walking feels empty of the source we seek.
The next time you encounter an unfamiliar poem. Look to the turns and, taking Stevens’ poem as a guide, listen closely.
About Poem of the Month:
Tune in at 10:30 a.m. on the second Tuesday of every month to hear the month’s poem read by Matt Daly, executive director of Jackson Hole Writers.
The on-air poetry is an offshoot of the physical poetry box on Broadway, one of many place-making projects in Jackson Hole. Situated between Persephone Bakery and Cafe Genevieve, the small wooden box invites passersby to take a free poem as they go about their day — a creative take on the once-pervasive newspaper stand.
