7/24/2015 Axis Mundi
http://www.poets.org/print/node/411061 1/2
Published on Academy of American Poets
(http://www.poets.org)
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Axis Mundi
Where in the church of the mind,the minds sawn down trees,
where hardwoods stacked up,quartered and milled where under the
nave
the painting is placed,in the left-hand side aisle,
the viewpoint from which one approaches the altardo the putti
recover us and give us wings?
The figures are over life size,their heart beats thump through
the church
in the direction of the brushstroke,drift at the edge of fields
left to the shape it takes.
Sometimes its rain the reach of rain. Sometimes its purer, less
mixed. Jubilance.
I feel it running down the hill in the rainrunning so as not to
get wet but getting wet.
Pause to tie my shoelace,as if, tying it, I might actually pull
togetherfinding it undone.
Credit:
Copyright 2015 by Harriet Levin. Originally published in
Poem-a-Day on July 23, 2015, by theAcademy of American Poets.
About this Poem:
I wrote Axis Mundi when I was going for a run while in residence
at the Vermont Studio Centerand it started to rain. Rain saturated
me, but also it was my experience of being isolated andalone in a
new place. I wrote the whole poem in my headwhich accounts for its
short stanzasand its division into strophe and antistrophe. I write
most of my poems in my head, running, likethis one, or walking
around or even while Im driving which I think results in a more
simple formand, of course, in more repetition, because I have to
memorize the poem word by word as I go
7/24/2015 Axis Mundi
http://www.poets.org/print/node/411061 2/2
along.
Harriet Levin
Author:
Harriet Levin
Harriet Levin was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to
first-generation Eastern EuropeanJewish immigrants. She received
her BA in English and Russian at Temple University and herMFA from
the University of Iowa, where she also translated works for writers
in the InternationalWriting Program.
Read moreDate Published: 2015
Source URL: http://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/axis-mundi
