Longing and Wonder

By Myra Shapiro

“Talk to Myra you talk to the wall,”
Mama announced when I lived

so long in my head. Behind
my lids was where I fit.

O world, be small enough to hold me,
slow enough to let me swallow.

Maybe I belonged back inside her. Or
beneath the spine of a book. Maybe

among tall buildings to incubate
between their legs. The warm kitchen

was never for me though I wanted
to shine. Passion I called

the pressure wrestling underneath.
Yesterday, in an audience listening to

my first book of poems,
a full professor asked me : “Longing,

how is it different from wonder?”
Astonished, jack-lit as a robber

caught with the goods, I felt my eyes
struggle to withdraw - and then

in longing you close your eyes,
but in wonder you open them.

When those words went
ZINGing through the lovely room
You bet your sweet ass they opened.

Comments : Not only did I enjoy the story in this poem, I just loved the line 'in longing you .....open them'. :-)
Zen.

In the words of the poet :"I wrote 'Longing and Wonder' to hold on to a gift, to convey my happiness at receiving it : the words of the penultimate stanza. When they surfaced, I felt as wise as I'm ever likely to become. School situations have a way of tongue-tying us - what does the teacher want? - and there I was, a sixty four year old poet with a first book, being questioned by a University Department Chairman. When the answer came out of my mouth at the instruction of my eyes, book and body were one!.....The sensation was so good I, who love cities, had to shape it into something concrete."