Sarah Blake, In Spring Time

 

 

12.

The bird spirit understandsthat her new form is more beautiful. Even
if it is less seen.

And she flies so easily. Minutesago she flew right under a bird of prey.

Hours ago she was abovethe clouds. The air was thin. The stars and
moon were close.

Her body has been singingto her from under the earth.

The song is sad, and whenshe sings, a whistling noise leaves her
torn stomach.

The mismatched notes ofher grieving body are the saddest of all.

Thethird poetry collection from American expatriate Sarah Blake, a poet andfiction writer currently living outside of London, England, is In SpringTime (Middletown CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2023), following on theheels of her Mr. West (Wesleyan University Press, 2015) [see my review of such here] and Let’s Not Live on Earth (Wesleyan University Press,2018) [see my review of such here]. In Spring Time is composed as a book-lengthsuite via a sequence of sixty numbered poems that loosely thread in, across andthrough the collection, grouped together across four numbered sections (“DAY 1,”“DAY 2,” “DAY 3” and “DAY 4”). Blake composes her meditative thread across ameandering of compressed time and the advent of spring, writing rebirth, renewaland death; she drifts across allegory and the specifics of foliage, wildanimals and even a horse. As part “31” offers: “She likes this. She likes you.She has no idea what she wants.”

Offeringa poem that sits simultaneously within the body and the body of nature, Blake writesthe bounds of a season, following the details of movement and temporal space. “Who’sto say how far away the branches are?” she writes, as part of the poem “16.” in“DAY 2,” “Who’s to say how far / away the sky is? Who spends their time measuringdistances? // Is that an act of touching?” In Spring Time offers of andfrom spring, sketching moments through what appear as a kind of lyrical andphysical dream-state of horses, streams and daily meditations, attempting tofind her footing. As “20.” includes: “You’re glad the sun is going to spendtime every day shining on you. / This version of you that will outlast yourbody.”