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Case Study: Beauty
by
Michelle
Peñaloza
Winner of the 2010
Duckabush Prize for
Poetry
Final Judge, Rick Barot
A series of advances:
echo upon echo upon
echo.
And retreats: the plume
of red that follows the
hen.
Warm fingers on fogged
glass,
fluent circles of
concentric sound.
Novenas fallen from
cathedral ceiling
like rain; a coy lover’s
rising yes and
no.
Velvet claret closing on
the tongue—blackberries,
port;
the opening of purple
crocus in snow.
The quiet dust of
flowers scattered on
sepulchral floor.
Mushroom caps grown
overnight, wide as the
moon.
Necessity: saffron
thread and cinnamon
coil,
cardamom pod, coriander
bead; pyramids of spice.
Blood that keens across
ocean to archipelago;
songs
sent—on the wind, in the
soil, by the sun—to the
dead.
The space between
constellation and myth.
The pearl of a word
dropped from a weary
tongue.
Momentary: the gently
opening tamarind skin,
the lash of koi tail in
dark water beneath lotus
leaves.
Salvific: a field guide
to feeling. Because a
known face,
a face the color of
sunned wind. A scent—
verbena, mint,
attar—lingers between
forefinger and thumb.
Mirrored stairway of
rice terraces,
cordillera exposed by
the moon;
when the line between
sky and earth waits
perforated,
to be torn or crossed,
liminal as death or
birth;
the path through a
meadow filled with Queen
Anne’s lace
and goldenrod leading to
a river of white marble.
A purple martin hunts in
a field at dusk,
the sky white bordered
by a darker and darker
blue.
A sentry crane wakes;
drops a stone from its
claw: veracity.
Judges comments:
“‘Case Study: Beauty’
has an ambitious breadth
that the poet fills with
unexpected and gorgeous
textures. Like an
essay, the poem is in
sure command of its
ideas, even as it keeps
a very keen gaze on the
particulars that
ravishingly exemplify
those ideas. The red
plume of a hen, the skin
of a tamarind, the
meadow with white and
gold flowers: the poem
wants to encompass much
of the world into
itself. Necessity,
veracity, and beauty
itself: the poem wants,
just as much, to
celebrate the elements
of knowing that shape
our vision. “‘Case
Study: Beauty’ sees,
thinks, feels, and
creates all at once.” |
