Third Place Winner, November 2002 InterBoard Poetry Competition

Poetry

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Poetry

InterBoard Poetry Competition

Third Place Winner, November 2002

SLAYING PHILISTINES
      Jim Tilley
      (MiPo Zine & Board)
“When we are no longer children,
we are already dead.”
      — Constantin Brancusi
______________________________

Perhaps it’s a story of happenstance
that begins with a village carpenter
and ends with a master in his dusty atelier,

always the unschooled shepherd
who harbors no ambitions
to lead an army, but dreams
of a magical bird, the mythical Maiastra
lifting him to perch with her
on a boulder at the edge of space
where they’ll cajole a falcon’s wings to stillness
and wax them with the sun,

or perhaps it’s about a boy’s hunger
to mold a piece of goat cheese,
whittle branches into wands, massage shavings
between his thumb and fingers, rub toes
against a stream’s smooth stones,

for how else can you explain
an old man hunched over
a rhombic block of marble, carving
plainsong into crescendo, chiseling away
the husk, struggling
to liberate a creature’s spirit?

Judge Christine Reed’s comment: “The epigraph does a wonderful job of setting the tone in this piece which continues on successfully with economy of line and philosophical undertones.”