I’m revisiting my reading of Mark L. Bennion’s poem “Still Life” (scroll down). Here’s an excerpt from my original 11 October 2011 post and my recent reading of Mark’s poem:
The excerpt:
In “Still Life” the poet captures that childhood longing (though I don’t think kids see it that way) to forge some union with the earth, with the people that surround them. Such efforts are generally punctuated with the dynamics of genuine play, something that somehow falls away from us as we mature. I forget the last time I rolled down a grassy hill with a friend. My brother and I used to do it, you know, when we were younger. And that experience jibes with what the poet’s captured here: two boys (brothers, perhaps, or good friends; maybe both) who “lived for dizziness” “at dusk” (line 1), “roll down the backyard slope” (2). With each turn, they become more and more oblivious to what’s going on around them. They invest themselves so heavily in the moment, in present sensations, the viscerality of motion sickness and boyhood play, that they don’t see themselves growing up. They don’t notice the sun drop below the horizon. They don’t know, perhaps, that they’re engaged in the ephemerality of life on a slowly dying earth. (More.)
The reading: