You Can Write Poetry - Jeff Mock [48]
I believe what I can see and taste
And touch: sunrise, bread, the earth
Firm beneath my feet.
These lines, taken with the title—"Saint Thomas," the doubting apostle—suggested that the poem explore doubt and belief. I wrote several drafts, trying to discover how to present these concerns, until I decided a narrative would be the best approach. The Testaments, after all, are narratives. The tension of Saint Thomas's narration, too, doubt versus belief, was present in his statement about trusting his senses. Here's how the poem turned out:
SAINT THOMAS
I believe what I can see and taste
And touch: sunrise, bread, the earth
Firm beneath my feet. When I see
Far ahead Roman spears glinting,
Approaching, I know the road I travel
Is their road; the dust, their dust.
Even from a distance, I hear the rattle
And clank of armor and I know what Rome
And spears can do. In the summer weeds,
Off the road, I stand as they troop by.
When, come to a village, I lift
A cup to my lips, I know the taste
Of clay and of water cool from the well.
As I wash dust from my tongue and face,
I believe in water. When, in the marketplace,
People throng about us, I touch them
And I know something akin to hope
Exists. I hear what they hear and hear
As well the silence between the simple words.
I cannot say what I hear in the silence,
But I hear it, and at night when I lay
Myself down, it follows me into sleep
And I do not dream. There is much
I cannot believe, much that is beyond
My ken, but I have come to know
The silence beyond the reaches of the day.
Come sunrise, I believe in all I can.
This is a persona poem, Saint Thomas expressing his desire to believe, to have faith. The pleasure of writing a persona poem is getting inside the head of a character, seeing what he sees, feeling what he feels. The middle of the poem was engendered in the opening lines, Thomas avowing faith in his senses. The narrative presents instances highlighting each sense, and each instance contributes to the narrative, moving it from the wilderness to a village where Thomas experiences a brief moment of faith and comes to understand that he needs more.
You can think about a poem in several ways: as a house you explore room by room, as a journey taking you from one place to another, as a secret revealed a bit at a time. Or it may be a little of each. "Saint Thomas" is such a combination. The senses are rooms the poem shows us through; we travel literally from one place to another and metaphorically from doubt toward faith; and Thomas reveals a secret: He wants to achieve faith.
"Saint Thomas" went through several drafts before it even began to take shape. A few of its early lines ended up in the poem, but most went into storage. Once the poem began to take shape, it went through several more drafts, each removing weak lines, adding stronger lines and giving the whole more clarity and precision. Each of the images—the Roman troops, the cup of water, the crowded marketplace—took time to develop. Early images were discarded. New images developed. In the early drafts, I never knew exactly where the poem was heading, that in the end Thomas would say, "I believe in all I can." Had I known that as I wrote, the poem wouldn't have a sense of surprise: Thomas's final statement would have been dogmatic rather than revelatory. Instead of leading the poem, I let the poem, and its speaker, lead me.
That's generally how the body of a poem comes to be. In the first lines the poet sees the direction the poem wants to take, then writes too much, then cuts away the excess, the wrong turns, the weaknesses. Then the poet writes too much again. It's like that Sunday drive, going just to see where you arrive. Expect to take wrong turns. Expect