My friend M.E. introduced me to this poem by Amy Gerstler, a contemporary American poet who teaches both at Bennington in Vermont and at USC. Though I can't say I ever thought Eliot looked "roasted," I do identify with Gerstler's concurrent feelings of love, frustration, faith and alienation.
To A Newborn
When we first met
a week ago, you were
two days old,
twenty inches long,
swaddled like a sultan,
weighing in at seven
pounds. You looked
like a furious skinned
kitten. You looked cooked.
Roasted, to be precise.
I assume you'll cool.
I liked you enormously, due
to my affinity for anyone
pissed-off, particularly
infants. The tuft of black
hair on your head seemed
magnetized. Fine as coal
dust, it stands straight
up, like a smoky flame,
a rooster's comb, a hand
raised for permission to speak.
I'd like a piece of your mind
tout de suite , so hurry
and learn English. You have
the aura of someone who's
just run a great distance.
When I see your soft,
severe, inebriated
looking face, I become
unreasonably happy,
tearful (as you often are),
and feel completely at sea.
You seem to like to keep
only one eye open at a time,
as you twist in your mother's
arms and punch the air,
which makes you look cocky.
I own earrings bigger
than your fists. We adults
take turns smelling your
powder-scented head.
Protector of all beings,
twirling your awful lasso
of snakes, look down
on this new creature
the color of blood,
with his constantly empty stomach
and his expression as
sour as onions sauteed in aged
yak butter. Voracious deity,
keep one of your thousand eyes
on this male baby as he picks
his way among mournful trees
and flowering plants that form
the forest of his circumstances
and family. Help him find
his true root. Do this at the most
humble request of one so terrified
(O, trailblazer, lord of conflicting emotions, teacher of naked ascetics, traveler ever arriving), that the list of her fears would
weary to death anyone reading this
sentence, were she to mention them
all.
