[The challenge: to start]

By Anna Moschovakis
The challenge: to start
not with theory but with tangible performance

You and others, approaching

We shall be asked for a way out

                to be fed

                to keep warm and dry

Starting with experience, magic
genuine science

More than once we have been lost
in a trackless wilderness

dwarfed and shadowed by mighty buildings
subway trains wild as elephants

One goes blindly back to one’s desk

These moments come, their dark
shadow

We glimpsed control
and more tragic waste

We entered with 40,000,000 warriors
with the dignity of cathedrals

The lake is upon you.
You have two canoes, your tent
The child has entered upon this desert

You have your axes

What, precisely, is your procedure?

Copyright Credit: Anna Moschovakis, “[The challenge: to start]” from You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake. Copyright © 2011 by Anna Moschovakis. Reprinted by permission of Coffee House Press. www.coffeehouse.org
Source: You and Three Others Are Approaching a Lake (Coffee House Press, 2011)