Thought That Nature. Trey Moody

      

      

      © 2014 by Trey Moody

      FIRST EDITION

      All rights reserved.

      No part of this book may be reproduced without written permission of the publisher.

      Please direct inquiries to:

      Managing Editor

      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

Foreword by Cole Swensen

       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

FOREWORD

      “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