"Wreck" and "rise above"

Eleanor Wilner

Because of the first, the fear of wreck,

which they taught us to fear (though we learned

at once, and easily),

because of the wreck

that was expected (and metal given velocity

and heft to assure it)—

we became adepts in

rise above: how many versions: the church

steeple that took the eye straight up to

heaven (though it seemed snagged on

the cross-beam of that cross, torn blue

at the top, where sense leaked out). And

rise above, transcendence, on that higher

plane, the vertical direction of virtue (a bony

finger pointing up to where matter dissolves

into distaste for it);

the space program, expensive

tons of rocket (soon to be debris) fired off

the planet's crust at anything out there, pocked

moon, red rocky Mars, ever the upward

urge, carved in the marble arch of the old library

door under which generations passed,

hoping to rise above it all—

like the woman the magician levitates

over the table, her body floating an unlikely

inch or two above the velvet-draped plateau...

watch her hovering, weightless,

the crowd staring

in wonder, the trick of the thing still hidden,

and the magician doing something now

with his hands, a flurry of brilliant

silk in the air, as she floats

in the endlessness of art,

the magician

still waving his scarves, the air a bright

shatter of wings, doves from a hat,

our disbelief suspended,

while below, the wrecks accumulate:

scrap yard, broken concrete slabs, and

all those bodies not exempt from gravity,

beneath our notice as we ride

above it all, like froth on a wave

that will be water falling by the ton,

soon, when the tide turns.

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Snails by Francis Ponge

Unlike the ashes that make their home with hot coals, snails prefer moist earth. Go on: they advance while gluing themselves to it with their entire bodies. They carry it, they eat it, they shit it. They go through it, it goes through them. It’s the best kind of interpenetration, as between tones, one passive and one active. The passive bathes and nourishes the active, which overturns the other while it eats.

(There is more to be said about snails. First of all their immaculate clamminess. Their sangfroid. Their stretchiness.)

One can scarcely conceive of a snail outside its shell and unmoving. The moment it rests it sinks down deep into itself. In fact, its modesty obliges it to move as soon as it has shown its nakedness and  revealed its vulnerable shape. The moment it’s exposed, it moves on.

During periods of dryness they withdraw into ditches where it seems their bodies are enough to maintain their dampness. No doubt their neighbors there are toads and frogs and other ectothermic animals. But when they come out again they don’t move as quickly. You have to admire their willingness to go into the ditch, given how hard it is for them to come out again.

Note also that though snails like moist soil, they have no affection for places that are too wet such as marshes or ponds. Most assuredly they prefer firm earth, as long as it’s fertile and damp.

They are fond as well of moisture-rich vegetables and green leafy plants. They know how to feed on them leaving only the veins, cutting free the most tender leaves. They are hell on salads.

What are these beings from the depths of the ditches? Though snails love many of their trenches’ qualities they have every intention of leaving. They are in their element but they are also wanderers. And when they emerge into the daylight onto firm ground their shells will preserve their vagabond’s hauteur.

It must be a pain to have to haul that trailer around with them everywhere, but they never complain and in the end they are happy about it. How valuable, after all, to be able to go home any time, no matter where you may find yourself, eluding all intruders. It must be worth it.