{"id":395,"date":"2017-03-09T17:03:41","date_gmt":"2017-03-10T01:03:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/?p=395"},"modified":"2017-03-09T17:22:10","modified_gmt":"2017-03-10T01:22:10","slug":"a-green-crabs-shell-by-mark-doty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/?p=395","title":{"rendered":"“A Green Crab’s Shell” by Mark Doty"},"content":{"rendered":"
Not, exactly, green:\r\ncloser to bronze\r\npreserved in kind brine,\r\nsomething retrieved\r\nfrom a Greco-Roman wreck,\r\npatinated and oddly\r\nmuscular. We cannot\r\nknow what his fantastic\r\nlegs were like\u2014\r\n\r\nthough evidence\r\nsuggests eight\r\ncomplexly folded\r\n\r\nscuttling works\r\nof armament, crowned\r\nby the foreclaws\u2019\r\n\r\ngesture of menace\r\nand power. A gull\u2019s\r\ngobbled the center,\r\nleaving this chamber\r\n\u2014size of a demitasse\u2014\r\nopen to reveal\r\n\r\na shocking, Giotto blue.\r\nThough it smells\r\nof seaweed and ruin,\r\n\r\nthis little traveling case\r\ncomes with such lavish lining!\r\nImagine breathing\r\n\r\nsurrounded by\r\nthe brilliant rinse\r\nof summer\u2019s firmament.\r\n\r\nWhat color is\r\nthe underside of skin?\r\nNot so bad, to die,\r\n\r\nif we could be opened\r\ninto this\u2014<\/em>\r\nif the smallest chambers\r\n\r\nof ourselves,\r\nsimilarly,\r\nrevealed some sky.\r\n\r\nFrom Atlantis<\/em>, published by HarperCollins. Copyright \u00a9 1995 by Mark Doty.<\/span><\/pre>\n
This poem appears in an early collection of Doty’s work, a book he published in the wake of his partner Wally’s death from AIDS in 1994. As a graduate student, I sat in the audience in a Cal Poly lecture hall the year he was promoting this book, and I have never forgotten Doty, his sharing of his grief with a room full of strangers and his melancholic, resonant reading of this beautiful, hopeful poem. I love the musicality of the language (note the repetition of the soft \/s\/ sound), I love the vivid, lush imagery, and the turn toward surprise at the end stirs me toward reflection . . . what if the smallest chambers of ourselves, similarly, revealed some sky?<\/p>\n
What do you think of this poem? What images or phrases do you find particularly poetic or lyrical?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Not, exactly, green: closer to bronze preserved in kind brine, something retrieved from a Greco-Roman wreck, patinated and oddly muscular. We cannot know what his fantastic legs were like\u2014 though evidence suggests eight complexly folded scuttling works of armament, crowned by the foreclaws\u2019 gesture of menace and power. A gull\u2019s gobbled the center, leaving this … Continue reading “A Green Crab’s Shell” by Mark Doty<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-395","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-poems-for-contemplation","category-spirituality"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=395"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/395\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=395"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=395"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/theprovinceofjoy.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=395"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}