My Lord Of
My lord of March in Madrid and a desultory stroll through Paseo Park. My lord of buying sweet yams from a vendor and devouring them in their skins, even the burned parts. My lord of green grass springy so I throw myself down. My lord of my daughter reading Jules Verne beside me. My lord of a single feather on the grass, which I send aloft, a numinous novel of the air. My lord of Picasso’s Guernica in the Reina Sophia Museum four blocks from here. My lord of the wall opposite the painting turning blue every six months, a mystery like statues weeping. My lord of the mystery solved: visitors sliding their jeans against the wall to get a wider perspective on fire raining down on hooved animals and the peasants who feed them. My lord of three million glorious bodies in this city, but all I need is my beloved. Until she arrives, my lord of impatient waiting, and after, my lord of hugging her like a lost lover, just a few layers of decorum between her electric skin and mine. My lord of a bike thrown down in the sand like a gored horse, of cigarette smoke rising ragged and holy. My lord of who feeds these feral cats slinking and where do all the feathers of the world end up? My lord of my achy left leg growing achier on account of my daughter leaning. My lord of fourteen years ago she didn’t exist on this planet, neither 20,000 leagues below or above. My lord of right now and not yesterday and maybe not tomorrow—therefore let her lean. My lord of sun and desire, of green and again green, of feathers I can’t see floating like petitions borne by the breeze. My lord of here I am, where, where are you? My lord of thank you. My lord of my endless Lord.
Lance Larsen has published five poetry collections, most recently What the Body Knows (Tampa 2018), in which this poem first appeared. Former poet laureate of Utah, he has received a Pushcart Prize and an NEA fellowship. His poetry and prose appear widely in New York Review of Books, London Magazine, Paris Review, Southern Review, APR, Brevity, Brief Encounters (a Norton anthology), and elsewhere. He plays a scrappy game of basketball, loves Skagen watches, and grows hostas with exotic names like Blue Angel and Fire and Ice. He teaches at BYU and often fools around with aphorisms: “A woman needs a man the way a manatee needs a glockenspiel.” Sometimes he juggles.
About the poem
►I wrote this in 2012 at the tail end of a study abroad program in Madrid. It was a warmish day in late March, and we were ecstatic to be in Retiro Park and ecstatic to be outside. I wrote it initially as a journal entry, published it in a magazine as a nonfiction piece, then included it as a prose poem in my collection What the Body Knows. Amazing how a repeating phrase like “My Lord of . . .” can work like glue in holding together such disparate impressions. These days I think of this piece as a collage.
