{Maybe it's because I am a BRP major, maybe it's because Waldrep was Amish; Biblical references seem to scream from Battery Townsley. While reading the poem, does anything stick out to you?}
Battery Townsly is broken ito three sections: a deposition, a journey, and a "not-ending."
DESPOSITION
Waldrep begins by telling us the current state of the times and the battery. As in Battery Rathbone, everything is permitted; there are no gates. Nothing is off limits: the battery that once was elusive and heavily guarded now allows for intrusion. Though it is not needed for defense, rumors of war still ring, and poets reflect what they see. In times of war, poets will record the human deposition in that state-- they will record history. But in this constant tearing, Waldrep provides the security of Love written on walls of terror.
War and Love are two constants in our world, niether of which can be drowned out; both are in the nature of humanity. He presents love as something entrenal,however, indicationing war may pass away by including words staining a obsolete weapon.
JOURNEY
As Waldrep adventures this space, he shares with the reader his experience, his actions. Also notice in this section, the upward glance:
I look up, as to a dictionary...
a cur to its high table...
the hawk and the raven...
Walderp seaches for answers as one who is unworthy of any gain (cur= mutt, high table= where kings eat) only to find so much that he can not retain it all. and what is this living languae? First thought: scripture. Second thought: life in general. So much knowledge comes to you in the silence, looking and listening deriving all meaning.
Vastness again appears hear as birds of prey watch his step, the sun focusing on his face to the point of gleam. although he is alone, a vast focus is on him. And in walking, in rediscovering, again and again, as grain is reaped from the ground, and ground to bread, and feed, and then burried and dead, he sees his own story in context.
He releases himself from his past.
NOT-ENDING
A bouy sits on waves far from him, giving depth to his sight and proximity to his location-- litearrly, and figurativly, as he stand in just one, small point in history; a whisp of wind.
Waldrep refers to a Native legand described in Battery Smith-Guthrie; Point Reyes is where they would go to die. Although his life is so insignificat in comaprison to oceans, he only accepts death as something to come. when it is time, he will go. But now, he must do, he must love.
"There is an egale branching like a tree //in each of my bodies"
How odd. How wonderful this expainsion in the chest, yet great rootedness takes on deeper sense when placed in two bodies: is it soul and skin? self and kin? what past and present?
Two bodies-- an expainsion of self, folloed by listlessness of sucking rocks in cheeks.
itallic,
you must fill me now with your story.
a whisper. a need to connect and be filled with juvinille delight. how
human.
none are simply men, but also boys, and lovers, and soilders, and parishers.
we are all of what are stories told, but we are not are stories.
What is the story of the place he stands? Of all the batteries he visited?
I think it's interesting that the poem is divided into these three sections. It helps to categorize each part of the poem and detect the transitions. The "Not-Ending" is also an interesting twist for the rest of the poem. This could reflect the fact that we are always moving, walking from one place to the next.
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