Prediction

Posted on October 29, 2003
Filed Under poems: Korea |

This is just a little poem I wrote in my head this morning, and I spend a chunk of time fixing it, getting things closer to right. I don’t usually talk about what poems are about, but for my second-language readers it helps… I’ve been thinking a lot lately about, prediction, I guess…. about writing about the future, like I do in my SF writing, and about thinking about the future. What does it mean to think about the future? Is the future what we really think about when we think about the future? I think we often think of the past, or of things we are afraid of or things we love or have loved, or hate or have hated. In science fiction, the future is usually a kind of special imaginary description of the present or the recent past, dressed up in science-fiction clothing.

How tenuous and chancy, this whole endeavour of considering the future! The future is almost always something we don’t expect… and yet when it comes, we often say we knew it would happen. And we’re usually lying. One thing we can be sure of is that the future will surprise us… sooner or later, anyway.

Prediction

Walking, wondering: which one could it be?
Conservative pant-suit and mother’s pearls?
Jeans and jiggle and purple shriek of hair?
You cannot sample or say, one of each,
please. You are distracted: you recognize
the shoulders of a lost lover in this stranger’s,
or a certain movement of the head in another’s.

Each single glance you make is a kind of haunting:
the world you’d lived in, old dreams of tomorrow,
dreams without the sinking sump of a barren ocean,
or a hole in the sky so big your arm fits through.
The future is a girl hidden on a crowded subway
train, in a corner, watching us all patiently,
whom nobody notices, waiting to arrive at last.

Walking down the length of the train, dodging
people hawking cheap electronics in a foreign
tongue, eyes turned out across the Han river,
hoping they’re not talking about coming wars,
or exhaling beneath their breaths, the next great plague;
maybe, just perhaps, they’ll mumble us to utopia.
Then you realize she might not be on this train at all.

Comments

4 Responses to “Prediction”

  1. Marvin on October 29th, 2003 10:16 pm

    Somehow this reminds me of one of my favorite passages from Jose Ortega y Gasset’s _Meditations On Quixote._ I’m not sure it’s relevant, mind you, but I am reminded of it.

    “Circumstance! _Circum stantia_! The is, the mute things which are all around us. Very close to us they raise their silent faces with an expression of humility and eagerness as if they needed our acceptance of their offering and at the same time were ashamed of the apparent simplicity of their gift. We walk blindly among them, our gaze fixed on remote enterprises, embarked upon the conquest of distant schematic cities. Few books have moved me as much as those stories in which the hero goes forward, impetuous and straight as an arrow, towards a glorious goal, without noticing the anonymous maiden who, secretly in love with him, walks beside him with a humble and suppliant look, carrying within her white body a heart which burns for him, like a red-hot coal on which incense is burned in his honor. We should like to signal to the hero for him to turn his eyes for a moment towards that passion-inflamed flower which is at his feet. All of us are heroes in varying degrees and we all arouse humble loves around us. ‘I have been a fighter / And this means I have been a man,’ exclaims Goethe. We are heroes, we are forever struggling for something far away, and trample upon fragrant violets as we go.”

    Everyone is the hero and the maiden simultaneously.

  2. gord on October 30th, 2003 9:53 am

    I haven’t read any of his work, Ortega y Gasset, but I am beginning to think perhaps I should. Anyway, it’s a good quote… I think he probably says something rather different than what I am saying, but I think I can see some kind of connection or resonance, maybe…

  3. Michele Rowe on October 30th, 2003 12:27 pm

    Gord: Need some time to digest. I am starting to write again & meet with the gang… Will be in touch soon. There is some great stuff here. Love, M

  4. Carla Atherton on November 3rd, 2003 11:58 am

    It seems as if your style has changed somehow - perhaps with the use of more prose-like lines - you seem to leave more words here that you may have cut in the past? Not that this is bad, just different. Anyway, when reading the 1st stanza it took me a bit to get what you were delving into, but as I read on and re-read the poem, the meaning began seeping into me like warmth after a strong drink - a bit of a shiver, everything clear for a few moments. I think using the girl as a metaphor for the future was really interesting - the image was quite vivid. The ending was perfectly surprising and thought-provoking. Nice.