Wavelength

By David St. John b. 1949 David St. John

They were sitting on the thin mattress

He’d once rolled & carried up the four floors

To his room only to find it covered nearly all

Of the bare wood

Leaving just a small path alongside the wall

& between them was the sack

Of oranges & pears she’d brought its neck

Turned back to expose the colors of the fruit

& as she opened a bottle of wine

He reached over to a tall stack of books

& pulled out The Tao & with a silly flourish

Handed it across the bed to her she looked up

& simply poured the two squat water glasses

Half-full with wine & then she

Took the book reading silently not aloud

As he’d assumed & suddenly he felt clearly

She knew the way

Two people must come upon such an understanding

Together of course but separately

As the moon & the wave remain individually one

David St. John, “Wavelength” from Study for the World’s Body: Selected Poems (New York: HarperCollins, 1994). Copyright © 1994, 2005 by David St. John. Reprinted by permission of the author.

Source: Study for the World's Body: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins Publishers Inc, 1994)

Biography

David St. John was born in Fresno, California. He received his bachelor’s degree at California State in Fresno and went to the University of Iowa for an M.F.A. His works of poetry include Hush (1976), Terraces of Rain (1991) and The Red Leaves of Night (1999). Most recently he wrote The Face: A Novella in Verse (2004). He has received numerous awards and honors, including the Great Lakes College Association New Writers . . .

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