by David Wagoner
_
See him! Sing for him!
He knows which leg goes first
and which legs follow!
How else could he have risen
out of the seawater
and brought himself ashore
in the cold morning
with his crown of many feet?
Hasn’t he danced all day,
all afternoon and evening,
from one dry place to another
to deliver to the People
what he alone understands,
what he alone can bear—
the power of Starfish?
Sing now for Copper Maker,
Wealthy Man from the Sea!
He has never forgotten
those who have nothing to sing,
who have never learned to make
their names out of breathless air!
They are praising him! He goes
to the door of that black shell
with as many legs as stars
to embrace it, to force it open,
to feast on it, to begin
to empty it, still dancing!
David Wagoner has published 18 books of poems, most recently A MAP OF THE NIGHT (U. of Illinois Press, 2008) and ten novels, one of which, THE ESCAPE ARTIST, was made into a movie by Francis Ford Coppola. He won the Lilly Prize in 1991 and has won six yearly prizes from POETRY (Chicago). He was a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets for 23 years. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize and twice for the National Book Award. He edited POETRY NORTHWEST from 1966 to its end in 2002. He is professor emeritus of English at the U. of Washington and teaches in the low-residency MFA Program of the Whidbey Island Writers Workshop.
