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The Man Moves Earth

By Cathy Song b. 1955 Cathy Song

The man moves earth

to dispel grief.

He digs holes

the size of cars.

In proportion to what is taken

what is given multiplies—

rain-swollen ponds

and dirt mounds

rooted with flame-tipped flowers.

He carries trees like children

struggling to be set down.

Trees that have lived

out their lives,

he cuts and stacks

like loaves of bread

which he will feed the fire.

The green smoke sweetens

his house.

The woman sweeps air

to banish sadness.

She dusts floors,

polishes objects

made of clay and wood.

In proportion to what is taken

what is given multiplies—

the task of something

else to clean.

Gleaming appliances

beg to be smudged,

breathed upon by small children

and large animals

flicking out hope

as she whirls by,

flap of tongue,

scratch of paw,

sweetly reminding her.

The man moves earth,

the woman sweeps air.

Together they pull water

out of the other,

pull with the muscular

ache of the living,

hauling from the deep

well of the body

the rain-swollen,

the flame-tipped,

the milk-fed—

all that cycles

through lives moving,

lives sweeping, water

circulating between them

like breath,

drawn out of leaves by light.

Cathy Song, “The Man Moves Earth” from Poetry 186 (April 2005). Copyright © 2005 by Cathy Song. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Source: Poetry (Poetry Foundation, 2005)

Biography

Poet Cathy Song was born and raised in Hawaii and is of Korean and Chinese descent. Her work draws on her rich Korean-Chinese ancestry as well as her experiences as an American and a woman. In poems that have been compared by critics to the muted tints of watercolor paintings, Song has consistently created a world rich with narrative and imagery that transcends her own ethnic and regional background. Song herself resists . . .

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