April 28, 2019
Patrick Donnelly
as a child, I looked for pictures of you in the encyclopedia and circled
them around my bed.

Jesus said, I remember Giotto, Cimabue, Fra Angelico. I remember the
bells as Duccio's Maesta was carried into the cathedral.

I told Jesus, I asked you to lift my gayness from me, laid down on my face
in front of the altar at All Saint's Church on West Fort Street in Detroit.
was nineteen, it was 1975, midnight and the tiles were cold.

Jesus said, I remember asking you Hath the rain a father? or who hath
begotten the drops of dew?

I told Jesus, for thirty years I asked you to send me someone to love, and
then Stephen came and we married, but we were old, so I begged you,
keep us alive, let us live a little longer.

Jesus said, I remember I remember I remember the poem of you
that I sent to the empress with a branch of flowering.
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ERIC MCHENRY ON SWIFT: DAVID BAKER'S POETRY STITCHES THE FRACTURED WORLD INTO ART
 
All of Baker’s poems are rich in observation, imagination and memory. But it’s syntax that allows him to synthesize those elements, and to catch his own mind in the act of doing so.

via THE NEW YORK TIMES
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I took an introductory poetry writing class in my sophomore year of college because my schedule allowed it; I had mostly downed novels up until then. We were not assigned this Dickinson poem in class, and I can’t remember exactly how I came upon it. I was familiar with many of her famous poems, but something about this one made me feel both wonderfully repaired (from what? why?) and restive.
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