Scan barcode
A review by mepresley
Life on Mars by Tracy K. Smith
emotional
reflective
sad
4.0
My favorite poems were "At Some Point, They'll Want to Know What It was Like," "Life on Mars," and "Sacrament."
"At Some Point, They'll Want to Know What It was Like"
Somehow you'd just give away what you'd die without. You just gave.
The best was having nothing. No hope. No name in the throat.
And finding the breath in you, the body, to ask.
"Life on Mars"
Tina says what if dark matter is like the space between people
When what holds them together isn't exactly love, and I think
That sounds right--how strong the pull can be, as if something
That knows better won't let you drift apart so easily, and how
Small and heavy you feel, stuck there spinning in place.
....
...How two sisters, say, can stop knowing one another,
Stop hearing the same language, scalding themselves on something
Every time they try to touch. What lives beside us passing for air?
"Sacrament"
The women all sing when the pain is too much.
But first there is a deep despairing silence.
I don't know what rocks in them, what wants
To knock them clear. ...
....
...Sometimes
It takes forever for that song only the animals know
To climb back up into air as if to burst the throat.
Other favorite lines:
Who knows what blazes through his mind?
Is it still his life he moves through, or does
That end at the end of what he can name? ("My God, It's Full of Stars")
And what would we do, you and I, if we could know for sure
That someone was there squinting through the dust,
Saying nothing is lost, that everything lives on waiting only
To be wanted back badly enough?...
....
...Just like the life
In which I'm forever a child looking out my window at the night sky
Thinking one day I'll touch the world with bare hands
Even if it burns. ("Don't You Wonder, Sometimes?")
What does the storm set free? Spirits stripped of flesh on their slow walk.
The poor in cities learn: when there is no place to lie down, walk. ("The Speed of Belief")
...Memory's stubborn--
I mean misery. You sit in silence waiting to be chosen.
Behaving. Pick up your bed and walk. You want it all
Over again. Past Perfect. But go back and they'll make you
Start from the beginning. Climb out, they put you right back in. ("No-Fly Zone")
When it got to the point where you were only ever
Him, I had to get out from under it, sit up
And set my feet on the floor. Haven't I lived this
Enough times over? ... ("Field Guide")
"At Some Point, They'll Want to Know What It was Like"
Somehow you'd just give away what you'd die without. You just gave.
The best was having nothing. No hope. No name in the throat.
And finding the breath in you, the body, to ask.
"Life on Mars"
Tina says what if dark matter is like the space between people
When what holds them together isn't exactly love, and I think
That sounds right--how strong the pull can be, as if something
That knows better won't let you drift apart so easily, and how
Small and heavy you feel, stuck there spinning in place.
....
...How two sisters, say, can stop knowing one another,
Stop hearing the same language, scalding themselves on something
Every time they try to touch. What lives beside us passing for air?
"Sacrament"
The women all sing when the pain is too much.
But first there is a deep despairing silence.
I don't know what rocks in them, what wants
To knock them clear. ...
....
...Sometimes
It takes forever for that song only the animals know
To climb back up into air as if to burst the throat.
Other favorite lines:
Who knows what blazes through his mind?
Is it still his life he moves through, or does
That end at the end of what he can name? ("My God, It's Full of Stars")
And what would we do, you and I, if we could know for sure
That someone was there squinting through the dust,
Saying nothing is lost, that everything lives on waiting only
To be wanted back badly enough?...
....
...Just like the life
In which I'm forever a child looking out my window at the night sky
Thinking one day I'll touch the world with bare hands
Even if it burns. ("Don't You Wonder, Sometimes?")
What does the storm set free? Spirits stripped of flesh on their slow walk.
The poor in cities learn: when there is no place to lie down, walk. ("The Speed of Belief")
...Memory's stubborn--
I mean misery. You sit in silence waiting to be chosen.
Behaving. Pick up your bed and walk. You want it all
Over again. Past Perfect. But go back and they'll make you
Start from the beginning. Climb out, they put you right back in. ("No-Fly Zone")
When it got to the point where you were only ever
Him, I had to get out from under it, sit up
And set my feet on the floor. Haven't I lived this
Enough times over? ... ("Field Guide")