Sappho — Blackbird Archive

← v11n2, Fall 2012

Whether it’s really an island is any-

one’s guess, but the ocean is black as far as

The mainland, and the mainland is crumbling in-

to the water. She swims

To music that no musician is playing

and will never be sung and will never be

Written—the music of consciousness, purer

than water or sky

Or the body that carries the lyric for-

ward forever in silence that only the

Body can bear (bear over sings metaphor)

on or off islands

Where once the woman reclaims her nothingness,

and only the osprey watches the tidal

Grinding of earthliness, no consciousness cares

what any music means.

myth music solitude

T.R. Hummer

T.R. Hummer is the author of fifteen books of poetry and essays, most recently In These States (Jacar Press, 2020) and Eon (Louisiana State University Press, 2018). His most recent poems have appeared in The New Yorker , New York Quarterly , and Rattle . A former professor, he served as editor-in-chief for the Kenyon Review , The New England Review , and The Georgia Review . He has received numerous awards and honors, including a National Endowment of the Arts Individual Artist Grant in poetry, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship, and the Donald Justice Award for Poetry. Formerly a professor and editor, he now lives in Cold Spring, New York. Photo by David Limburg