By Josephine Miles
When with the skin you do acknowledge drought,
The dry in the voice, the lightness of feet, the fine
Flake of the heat at every level line;
When with the hand you learn to touch without
Surprise the spine for the leaf, the prickled petal,
The stone scorched in the shine, and the wood brittle;
Then where the pipe drips and the fronds sprout
And the foot-square forest of clover blooms in sand,
You will lean and watch, but never touch with your hand.
September 1934
Adonis, "Desert" from Selected Poems, translated by Khaled Mattawa. Copyright © 2010 by Adonis. Reprinted by permission of Yale University Press.
Source: Selected Poems (Yale University Press, 2017-10-31)
Poet Bio
Josephine Miles was born in Chicago but spent most of her life in California. She developed rheumatoid arthritis at a young age and was often confined to a wheelchair, which she claimed allowed her time to write. Not only a skilled poet, Miles was also a brilliant scholar; she spent her career teaching at the University of California, Berkeley, and was the first woman to earn tenure in the English Department.
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Of Tribulation, these are They,
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quartz crusts
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every surface —
a mouth
all teeth
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toughened glass
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rock
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