My Infinity

In Didi Jackson’s My Infinity, the “Northern sky stands so straight, / it uses the largest pines for crutches;” “The moon’s marias emerge / like age spots, monochromatic and ashy;” and “The birds drop in and out / like lures in a dark ocean littered // with loitering stars.”

Jackson’s first husband died by suicide, and her stunning metaphors are honed by a profound understanding of grief, and of the symbiotic relationship between life and death. Through close observation of birds, landscapes, sunrises, sunsets, and the night sky, among other natural phenomena, the poet draws attention to the beauty that surrounds us, a reminder that it’s possible to heal after a painful loss.

Listen to the shift
from rain to snow,
from wood to ash.
The change from pale grasses to laced jewels, 
from the dim pink sky
to something remembered.

Many of Jackson’s poems include references to Swedish artist Hilma af Klint (1862–1944), who, as the author notes, “painted what we now realize arguably to be the earliest examples of abstract art, predating Kandinsky and Mondrian,” and whose work attempts to connect with “beings of higher consciousness beyond the grave.” In that vein, several of the poems in this collection take the form of letters to the artist, responses to her work––particularly from the series The Paintings for the Temple––and persona poems written in the voice of Klint,

                So modest
        and feminine, these eight canvases could almost
            be overlooked. But don’t be deceived, they are

    as mighty as the bombs their atom-like orbits could become.

Jackson finds inspiration in Klint’s daring work, in the power of creativity to bring us back to ourselves, to find wonder in the everyday:

My Infinity. The pitch of yellow 
on the rump of the warbler.
My palm flattened against yours 
when we make love. My feral. 
Your smile as wide as the sky. 
The ocher blocks like bricks 
that make a life.