Edward Morin

Reverie on a Theme in PL/I
              For Camille

Bright green alphanumeric characters
link in rippling chains across the gray screen;
the software’s use of special symbols stirs
my longing for you during this midday dream.
Parentheses release their compound numbers
(those nested (inside first) then those outside)
as each of us in waking disencumbers
first head then limbs before our morning ride.
The asterisk [*], a sign that multiplies
and builds exponents each time two combine,
signals the kisses I give both your eyes;
the virgule [/] divides with ease upon one line
while I know your most passionate caress
and my love, which no program can express.

Edward Morin wrote this poem while employed briefly as technical writer at the General Motors Tech Center in Warren, MI. PL/I is the programing language he studied then. It has commercial, scientific and academic use. The poem was previously published in his second collection, Labor Day at Walden Pond (Roseville, MI: Ridgeway Press, 1997). His third, a chapbook entitled Housing for Wrens, was published in 2016 by Cervena Barva Press. In it, “housing” represents shelter, home, and acts of caring for the inhabitants. The motif infuses poems featuring birds and animals whom the poet takes as seriously as they take themselves.  His poems dramatize personal experience and social themes including job instability, homestead loss, and career-seeking in the corporatized workplace. They seek ways of being in touch with oneself and others, knowing kinesthetically what takes place in the world. His poems have appeared in Hudson Review, Ploughshares, and Prairie Schooner. He has edited and, with Fang Dai and Dennis Ding, co-translated an anthology, The Red Azalea: Chinese Poetry since the Cultural Revolution (U. of Hawaii Press, 1990). He co-edited Water Music: The Great Lakes State Poetry Anthology (Poetry Society of Michigan, 2016). He is co-host of the Crazy Wisdom Poetry Series of readings and writers workshops in Ann Arbor, MI. He has taught English at Wayne State University, University of Michigan, and five other universities and colleges.

Copyright © 2018 by Edward Morin