I know what it’s like to stand,
warming my face, before
a fire of poppies. I know
what it is to slink from a stranger’s
bed and rummage the floor
for a flowered dress.
And I know what it is to be a fern:
a part, and a whole, and a whole
part again. I tend my mother’s
garden and oil the roots
of my sisters’ shimmering hair.
Made of soil, grass stains,
and dew, I know what it is
to bloom. You’re right when you say
the shape of my life doesn’t depend solely
on me. Imagine trying to smooth a rock
into silk with your tongue. But
I’m no amateur: I’ve been an animal
all my life. I husk corn
of its glistening skirt. I don soft
garments only I can feel.
I change the vase’s water and dress
the table. And when all
the actualities are eaten, I wear
their bones as pearls.
describe one formal realization or change you made during the writing of this poem.
I wanted to write a poem to explore the ways the past has shaped me and the ways I can—and can’t—shape the future. I continue to wonder at the tension between agency and powerlessness in my life: the poem gave me the opportunity to describe the vitality, resourcefulness, and usefulness of that wondering. Partway through the revision process, I remembered a line from Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “The Second Sermon on the Warpland.” Once I changed the title to “In the Noise and Whip of the Whirlwind” I began to revise toward Brooks: the poem found its final shape by being in conversation with her. The last lines of Brooks’s poem read: “Nevertheless, live. / Conduct your blooming in the noise and whip of the whirlwind.”