Two
poems from Jason Gray's Photographing Eden
followed
by a note on the author
The
Snow Leopard
In
the Metro Toronto Zoo
For
Paul Strong
He
pads on grassy banks behind a fence,
with measured
paces slow and tense.
Beyond
his cage his thoughts are sharp and white:
he
lives a compelled anchorite.
A
solid ghost gone blind with all the green,
he
waits and waits to be unseen.
My
Daughter as the Angel Gabriel in the Tableau Vivant of Van Grap's
Annunciation
I
gave birth to an angel, which is wrong
Twice-over, though it's hard to resist the thought.
I neither gave birth to her (just ask my wife)
Nor is she an angel (just ask her rattled teacher).
And yet there she is, in white and wings,
Long lily in one hand, the other held
To Mary as God's proxy. Scrap semantics,
Embrace your sentimentality, I say,
Despite the better angels of my nature.
She is still as she never is at home.
Still enough to be one of the host.
I do not want responsibility
For words, so let my daughter be an angel,
Let the painting live as if a stone was rolled.
It is the ultimate trompe l'oeil on stage.
They are there, and they are not, the way
I could pull back the curtain on this sight
To show you all the brushstrokes, that the child
On stage is not my daughter, but may be
An angel yet, one of those who is there
And not there in the corners of our eyes,
Which this little play has meant to fool,
Not out of any malice for the viewer
But to make a world in which I have a daughter,
Because I wish I did, and never will.
©
Jason Gray was born in Hibbing, Minnesota
in 1976, and was educated at Alfred University, Johns Hopkins
University and the Ohio State University, where he obtained
his BA, MA and MFA, respectively. He lives in Columbus, Ohio,
and and is Associate Poetry Editor of The Journal, a
literary magazine out of Ohio State. He has one published chapbook,
Adam & Eve Go to the Zoo (Dream Horse Press, 2003),
and one forthcoming, How to Paint the Saviour Dead (Kent
State University Press, 2007). His poems have appeared in various
journals, amongst them Poetry, The Kenyon Review and
The Threepenny Review, and his reviews have appeared
in The Missouri Review, The Cincinnati Review,
The Journal, and Shenandoah. Jason's honours include
the Wick Chapbook Award, a Maryland State Arts Council Grant,
a Tennessee Williams Scholarship (from the Sewanee Writers'
Conference), and two nominations for a Pushcart Prize.
"The
Snow Leopard" first appeared in Poetry and subsequently
appeared in the anthology And We the Creatures (Dream
Horse, 2003) and in the poet's chapbook, Adam & Eve Go
to the Zoo; "My
Daughter as the Angel Gabriel in the Tableau Vivant of Van Grap's
Annunciation" first appeared in Image, and
will be included in the poet's forthcoming chapbook, How
to Paint the Saviour Dead.
