«Singularity»
Poem
Marie Howe
[1950, Rochester, Nueva York]
2025 Pulitzer Prize Poetry
Do you sometimes want to wake up to the singularity
we once were?
so compact nobody
needed a bed, or food or money—
nobody hiding in the school bathroom
or home alone
pulling open the drawer
where the pills are kept
For every atom belonging to me as good
Belongs to you. Remember?
There was no Nature. No
them. No tests
to determine if the elephant
grieves her calf or if
the coral reef feels pain. Trashed
oceans don´t speak English or Farsi or French;
would that we could wake up to what we were
—when we were ocean and before that
to when sky was earth, and animal was energy , and rock was
liquid and stars were space and space was not
at all—nothing
before we came to believe humans were so important
before this awful loneliness.
Can molecules recall it?
what once was? before anything happened?
No I, no We, no one. No was
No verb no noum
only a tiny dot brimming with
is is is is is
All everything home
Singularity,
performed by the poet
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6rrf1tMy80
An intense and eloquent poem. With great emotional power as it elves into the complexities into human heart.
The verse «For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you» is from Walt Whitman´s poem «Song of Myself», who also explores these themes, as the deep sense of unity and interconnectedness between individuals... highlighting that the fundamental elements that make up one person are also share by all others.
Until the next reading,
Cecilia Olguin Gianelli
Notas
- Marie Howe. Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/marie-howe
- Song of Myself, by Walt Whitman. Poetry Foundation:
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45477/song-of-myself-1892-version
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