Sestina to the Movies
Salty and awash in butter, popcorn
goes from bucket to tongue in the glowing dark
of the theater. My mind focused on the film
as I try to sip Coke and discern inscrutable wisdom
at the same time—or perhaps just watch explosions.
I sit in homage to the filmmaker’s art.
It’s true, not all movies aim to be art—
There’s the summer flicks aiming at popcorn
sales; the movies with fewer words than explosions;
teen comedies reallymade for an excuse to be in the dark
with a date, because conventional wisdom
holds that drive-ins aren’t actually about the film.
I do have fond memories of those films.
We don’t always want capital “A” art.
Sometimes we want to fling away wisdom
and just sit down with some friends, drinks, popcorn,
and see James Bond dodge explosions,
or watch mutant sheep prey on farmers in the dark.
Ultimately, those innumerable hours spent in the dark
watching the good, the bad, and the ugly of films
did a lot more for me than kill time with explosions,
laughter, or explosion-inspired laughter. They taught me what art
can be, for all people. For Roger Ebert and the popcorn
chewers, for the gulpers-down of laughter and the devotees of wisdom.
And films can bring wisdom,
carrying us forward from the dark
to illumination in moments when the popcorn
rests, forgotten, in the bowl. All those films
that molded me, revealed to my nascent mind the nature, the art,
the exultation and sadness of humanity, entered my world as explosions.
Occasionally, violent. Often shaking. Explosions
opening passages as TNT and making wisdom
where before unconnected tracks butted mountains. The art
that Coppola and Kubrick brought to the dark
of the cinema, or that my first favorite film
brought to my VCR as I, unanticipating, munched popcorn.
It’s funny how popcorn and art
can complement each other, how films in the dark
can have so much wisdom—and really cool explosions.