© 2014 by Trey Moody
FIRST EDITION
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Sarabande Books, Inc.
2234 Dundee Road, Suite 200
Louisville, KY 40205
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Moody, Trey, 1982–
[Poems. Selections]
Thought That Nature / Trey Moody.
pages cm. — (The Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry)
“Winner of the 2012 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry selected by Cole Swensen.”
Summary: “Like rigorous philosophy, Trey Moody’s poems begin with the immediate evidence, then move outward: “I am here,” he says, “So far / this seems to have been true.” With his own existence as somewhat shaky premise, Moody is able to explore correspondences of thought and nature, of mind and matter. His project is to identify and capture those moments when the border between personal consciousness and the otherness of the physical become porous: “Pin oak left / me with its leaves, each / a somewhat familiar word.” Word is just one letter away from world, and through Moody’s bemused, self-effacing explorations we begin to see just how much language shades and even determines our day-to-day experience. Ironically, it also allows Moody to measure the distance between consciousness and direct experience, even as he casts this gap in memorable speech. “Wind listens,” he says, “though I lack insight.” This debut collection by a poet of obvious promise offers the reader a folding together of sensual delight and intellectual pursuit—a rare and bracing combination”—Provided by publisher.
“Winner of the 2012 Kathryn A. Morton Prize in Poetry selected by Cole Swensen.”
ISBN 978-1-936747-72-6
I. Title.
PS3614.O549845T46 2014
811'.6—dc23
2013024626
Cover art: “Le Tricolore, Jeune Adulte” by René Primevère Lesson (1794–1849).
Cover and interior layout by Kirkby Gann Tittle.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Sarabande Books is a nonprofit literary organization.
| The Kentucky Arts Council, the state arts agency, supports Sarabande Books with state tax dollars and federal funding from the National Endowment for the Arts. |
for Jennifer and Charlotte
CONTENTS
1
We Use Spoons Mostly
What We First Said
Climate Reply
A Weather [Why a. Why not . . .]
The Fallacy of Perfection
A Weather [Snow falls thick . . .]
Like Hearing For from That
Chatter
A Weather [Land absorbs sound . . .]
This Forest Isn’t a Room
A Feather Protruding from the Mouth
A Weather [While waiting . . .]
The Seating
A Weather [Said sand molds . . .]
Salina, Kansas
A Weather [Summer’s scalding echo . . .]
Dear Ghosts,
2: Lancaster County Notebook
The Good Life
Travelogue
To, But
Attention
In Crossing
By Hand
Act of Interpretation
Only What
Spring
Between Both
Nourishment
Distance
An Explanation
That Abstraction
Perfect Potential
3
Same-Day Resolution
A Weather [Since it is raining . . .]
Both
Everything Is Not for Everyone
A Weather [A certain sound . . .]
Yes, This Is May
A Weather [Heat: winter’s memory . . .]
Exercise in Patience
Backyard
A Weather [Colors claim consistency . . .]
A Note on Silence
This Hemisphere of Leaves
A Weather [Cold covers everything . . .]
Praise
A Weather [Complex countertops . . .]
Remembering the Original
Dear—
Notes and Acknowledgments
The Author
“Everyone always talks about the weather, but no one ever does anything about it.”
This classic joke has taken on an ever-more tragic twist during the past thirty years of increasingly obvious climate change, change that “we” could, should, and must do something about. Much international work on the issue focuses on defining that “we,” which has, among other effects (none of them addressing global warming), launched an interrogation of the “we” in its many social and political aspects, with their own effects, ranging from battles over immigration policy to fiscal unions. All these issues hum subtly at the bottom of Trey Moody’s sweeping collection—sweeping also in the weatherian sense; it has a tremendous momentum that amounts to a tempestuous phenomenon of wind or wave or both.
Increasingly, “weather” has become a synonym for disaster, but Moody gives this tension an historical dimension in the centerpiece of the collection, a retelling of the Lewis and Clark expedition structured around the weather