Draft, TRACKS, FOR A BOURGEOIS WOMAN 1CloseImageViewView image “Draft, TRACKS, FOR A BOURGEOIS WOMAN 1”Draft, TRACKS, FOR A BOURGEOIS WOMAN 1Uploaded August, 2024Tags listtagsnaturefrancemarie francelovewaterpoem
A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKSCloseImageViewView image “A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKS”A BLACK MILITANT POEM SPEAKSUploaded August, 2024Tags listtagsmilitarywarsurvivalmemorylawtraumapoem
LOVE AT FIRST SIGHTCloseImageViewView image “LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT”LOVE AT FIRST SIGHTUploaded August, 2024Tags listtagsloveyouthmusicpoem
Patterns in the Evolutionary TimelineCloseInteractiveViewView interactive “Patterns in the Evolutionary Timeline”Patterns in the Evolutionary TimelineUploaded March, 2024
TimelineJS TestCloseInteractiveViewView interactive “TimelineJS Test”TimelineJS TestUploaded August, 2023
Middle Passage Test 1CloseVideoViewView video “Middle Passage Test 1”Middle Passage Test 1Uploaded September, 2022
![Fair copy of a poem written in Paris 1-14 March 1985; changed 18 March 10:45 p.m.—2:00 a.m., 19 March 8:45a.m.—9:13; 12:30 p.m.—1:13.
[CROSS-COUNTRY] TRACKS, FOR A [MIDDLE-CLASS GIRL] BOURGEOUIS WOMAN
by J. A. Emanuel
High in [Austrian] alpine snow,
[her awkward] cross-country skis at awkward rest
to imitate the guide [*on a line by itself*]
she looked back suddenly, [felt surprisingly] surprised to feel
the downward mountain pulsing in h er eyes:
“a mystical experience,”
Wordsworth himself had said,
[the] this blank-ribbed surface of her past,
placeless as sky whirled upside down--
only clouds to slow her feet [again],
no gripping path
except the rutted trail behind them
its whiteness rearranged by bluer air.
A trance-like [quiet] quiet
palmed away her friend’s bright [phrase] talk
[left] from space the guide’s new voice [fit perfectly] spreads through
like quick-dry brush brushstrokes
[finishing] re-coloring the portrait she had sat for
all her life:
“Perhaps you’d like,” he said,
“to make tracks of your own.”
The sunshine-frame of it
[beamed out a splendor] braced the instant
[for the instant] needed by her waking skis
to plunge, her willing body following,
her [waking] shining senses leaping downhill[,]
to clinch[ing] the risk, the dare,
exhilaration blinded to the rock that rose
and jerked her headlong underneath the snow--
a [quiet] trap-door disappearance, a [soft] swallowing.
Panic pushed her friend--the guide already there--
to the nothingness above her,
anxiety a shrilling vapor
until a rosy-tasseled cap,](https://nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/manifold-cuny-api-store/store/resource/b/2/5/b2551129-f51b-43c5-b51c-17fb8102b329/attachment/d82e0734123a482a1701c3d7a3cb90b9.jpg)
