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To comment on this Poem, I: To comment on this Poem, I have to begin with an astronomical metaphor, because I think the Poem defies an ordinary initial description.  This poem is a trinary star system, around which phrases like planets the three stars.  The stars are the stanzas beginning with "drinking beauty . . ." then, "we should all love . . ." and "every act of kindness . . ."  These are not only the most important stanza in the poem, they are also---I would venture to assert---three of the most important stanzas in the Poet's entire collection.  And the final stanza, one of the most poignant she has ever written, describes what we can give to each other---as Poets to our readers, as lovers and friends to our loved ones, as living persons to our neighbors and contemporaries, and as, ultimately, persons no longer resident on this planet to our descendents and those who remembner and cherish our legacies.  Spirituality is always paradoxical:  as a Christian, I happen to believe that a Galilean rabbi, slian in the most horrible and agonizing way then known to humanity, has not only shattered my death by His death, but guaranteed my eternal Life by being resurrected---when stated this way, it seems like an extreme paradox, but when meditated upon it is a great spiritual comfort.  Patricia's stanza also explicates a paradox:  what we take with us as most precious to us is also what we leave behind in the legacy that remains of us after our departure.  It is the paradox like Issa (the Haiku Poet . . . I think I am remembering correctly here) found in a droplet of rainwater that contained a whole universe within it.  The mundane fact of the world---those that most people would agree make complete sense to help us remained "grounded"---can be found on a train ticket, a dinner menu, or a tax return.  Only in Poetry can the true spiritual paradoxes be traced, described, and discussed---but never exhausted in meaning---and Patricia has proven herself, repeatedly, one of the greatest exponents of this kind of metaphysical Poetry.     Here is another astronomical metaphor that comes to my mind and is a paradox.  Some of the stars that we might believe we actually see in the sky are no longer existing.  It is only the light trails, taking millennia of light years to reach us, that now remain; yet, by those light trails, great ships have navigated vast seas, and lovers have met in intimate convergence.  These stars we believe we see, that may no longer actually be at the other end of the light trails they have launched, are like the paradox her final stanza describes---leaving something behind that is very close to Heaven and never truly gone.  A Poet looks at the sky, at a particular star, a point of light, which is really now just the light trail (the star having collapsed and gone out).  The Poet describes that light trail in a poem; and, no matter if the light trail reaches the end of its existence, it is now preserved in a poem (or in photographs made by Hubble & Webb in outer space).  The poem is read by readers and makes itself part of their consciousness, whether they are always fully aware of its presence or not.  This is the process of taking with and leaving behind that Patricia's poem concludes with---a conclusion that, paradoxical in itself, is both conclusive and open-ended.         I am going to conclude my comment by suggesting (after some three years of reading Patricia's poems) the three levels on which her Poetry functions; and the levels are equal in significance, one is not superior or inferior to the other two.  First, the poems are metaphysical---they enclose the body, the earthly, the tangible within a spiritual significance.  Secondly, they are a record, a legacy, of and from one of the most spiritually shrewd souls I have ever had the privilege to read,  And third, they are what the scholars call Meta Poetry---poetry about poetry.  Wallace Stevens' poetry majored on this; Patricia's Poetry operates on the same level, in the same domain, that Stevens made his own; and that now, in front of us all on PostPoems, she makes her own.        Back in the summer of 1975, I---a callow, naive, and rather nerdy teenager---was able to find, during my first real visit to our county's main library (I had, previously, been geographically bound to our local branch) an edition of Mary Shelley's journal, which had been edited and published in the early forties.  Those of you, reading this, who know me know how deeply and personally significant Mary Shelley is to me.  In the final entry of the journal she maintained until four years prior to the massive stroke that brought her earthly life to its close, she wrote these words, a quotation from a letter that the political philosopher Edmund Burke wrote to his son; and words that Mary Shelley believed was the principle to which her life had aspired---Preserve, always, the habit of giving.   Patricia's Poetry embodies and fulfills those final words in Mary's journal; I believe---and I mean this sincerely---that she and Mary Shelley are kindred spirits.  When someone, someday, creates the printed volume of Patricia's poems (and that will happen in the future, mark my words), on the title page, this epigraph---these final words that Mary Shelley wrote---should appear under the Patricia's name, as a front page indicator of the supreme significance, and process, that her poems illustrate.

pretty good write. clever: pretty good write. clever

Truly remarkable: the idea: Truly remarkable: the idea itself and the deluge of transporting emotion that you so expertly evoked. It's miraculous on different levels, but the most profound is the connection I felt with the suffering Savior. And that called to mind the reasons for His unspeakable agony. It gripped my heart with paradoxical feelings of pain, gratitude and peace.    On another level, the journey of the young Saint is brimming with a luminous, cinematic and inspiring quality that touched me deeply. We see him, in his winsome and precious youth, suddenly thrust into almost unbearable grief and horror. But inside the wirlwind of brutality, you paint, with serene and gorgeous artistry, a portrait of humility and unshakable devotion.   Truly, an achievement and a treasure. My deepest respect.   

That is exactly the point I: That is exactly the point I hoped the poem would make, and thanks so much for your comment!

Thank you, sir, for such a: Thank you, sir, for such a generous, in-depth analysis of "The Deep Wounds.." To see the way it sparked a connection with you, Patricia and Cascade is a real honor for me. I believe that's a strong indication that I've written something of real meaning, and I'm very grateful for that, as well.

Excellent work: As history, the present, and - I imagine - the future goes, the next participants in oppression are often from the previously oppressed.