January 8

by David Lehman

The wind does whistle but it also hums
if you say it does, because you have
that power: language makes it possible,
and you have the choice: you can revile
the slogans and shibboleths of groupthink
or you can watch TV commercials as if
they were aesthetic products to be
appreciated and analyzed: not much
of a choice, is it: let's go beyond
"either/or" and see if we can't just ignore
what offends our nostrils, and makes
something out of our minds, out of our
minds in both senses: let's see
what happens when the imagination as
conceived by Wallace Stevens marries
the language as conceived by millions daily

From The Evening Sun, 2002.