You may or may not remember that my post on 17 August 2020, called “More Than We Bargained For” focused on poetry’s power to console and commiserate, to bring a measure of sanity when horrific things happen, and to capture day-to-day living. Dare I say that we might even be grateful that such poetry exists. Today’s post carries on those themes by way of pieces written by awake and in-touch poets.
Below are three more poems for your consideration. Can you identify the difficult time that the poets speak of in their work? How long, how frequent, how pervasive are the difficulties presented by the poems? Do you have the stomach to inhale these words, hold them, and then exhale into some level of understanding?
Note: The Background and Exploration sections are at the bottom of the three poems.
1) “HELIOCENTRIC” BY KEITH S. WILSON
What if you were an astronaut who has left a beloved someone back on Earth? After some time in space, what if you found yourself loving someone or something else more. Wilson’s poem explores the nature of loving more than one. Is it possible? Desirable?
Heliocentric
If I beg and pray you to set me free, then bind me more tightly still.
— Homer
I’m striving to be a better astronaut,
but consider where I’m coming from,
the exosphere,
a desk where the bluest air
thins to a lip. Impossible
to know the difference
from where I sit and space.
I promise I still dream
of coming back to you, settling
on your yellow for the kitchen.
We won’t fight. Let it not manifest.
Not over the crumpled bodies
of laundry. Let us not row
over the nail polish, its color,
the spilled sun. Inspiration
is the deadliest radiation.
It never completely leaves the bones.
You know.
From here,
there are no obstructions
but the radiant nothingness. An aurora
borealis opens
like a fish. This. To the pyramids, yes,
to a great wall. And there you are,
moving from curtain to curtain. O, to fantasize
of having chosen
some design with you.
But the moons over Jupiter. But
asteroids like gods
deadened by the weight of waiting. I remember
you said pastel
for the cabinet where the spice
rack lives. That I ought’ve picked you
up flowers when I had a chance. Daisy, iris, sun.
Red roses. Ultraviolet,
the color of love
(what else but this startles the air open
like an egg?).
I’m really trying
to be better, to commit
to memory the old songs about the ground,
to better sense your latitudes,
see the corona of your face.
Take your light
as it arrives. Earth is heavenly
too. But know that time is precious
here. How wine waits years and years to peak.
What is there to do: I’ve made love
to satellites in your name.
I’m saying I can’t say
when I’ll return. Remember me, for here are
dragons and the noble songs of sirens.
Stars that sway
elysian. Ships that will not moor, lovers
who are filled with blood and nothing
more. Who could love you
like this? Who else will sew you in the stars?
Who better knows your gravity and goes
otherwise, to catastrophe?
I’ve schemed and promised
to bring you back a ring
from Saturn. But a week passes, or doesn’t
manage. Everything steers impossible
against the boundless curb of light.
Believe I tried
for you. Against space. Time
takes almost everything
away. To you. For you.
A toast to the incredible. I almost wish
I’d never seen the sky
when always there was you. Sincerely,
2) “ELEGY” BY ARACELIS GIRMAY
Even though we know that everything and everyone dies, disintegrates, or dissolves, we don’t want to pay attention. In contrast, perhaps we pay too much attention to the details of everyday life, if that’s even possible.
Hannah Giorgis, a staff writer for The Atlantic, puts it this way, “Elegy,” like much of Girmay’s work, collapses the barriers between reader and poet, human and animal, land and sky, briefly creating its own kingdom of touching.
Elegy
What to do with this knowledge that our living is not guaranteed?
Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, then, believing in this.
Nothing else matters.
All above us is the touching
of strangers & parrots,
some of them human,
some of them not human.
Listen to me. I am telling you
a true thing. This is the only kingdom.
The kingdom of touching;
the touches of the disappearing, things.
3) “SIBLINGS” BY PATRICIA SMITH
Hurricane Katrina. This is the season. This is the poem.
Siblings
Arlene learned to dance backwards in heels that were too high.
Bret prayed for a shaggy mustache made of mud and hair.
Cindy just couldn’t keep her windy legs together.
Dennis never learned to swim.
Emily whispered her gusts into a thousand skins.
Franklin, farsighted and anxious, bumbled villages.
Gert spat her matronly name against a city’s flat face.
Harvey hurled a wailing child high.
Irene, the baby girl, threw pounding tantrums.
José liked the whip sound of slapping.
Lee just craved the whip.
Maria’s thunder skirts flew high when she danced.
Nate was mannered and practical. He stormed precisely.
Ophelia nibbled weirdly on the tips of depressions.
Philippe slept too late, flailing on a wronged ocean.
Rita was a vicious flirt. She woke Philippe with rumors.
Stan was born business, a gobbler of steel.
Tammy crooned country, getting the words all wrong.
Vince died before anyone could remember his name.
Wilma opened her maw wide, flashing rot.
None of them talked about Katrina.
She was their odd sister,
the blood dazzler.
Background
It’s all about loss, isn’t it? The first poem, for example, speaks of love lost or at least compromised. The nearly unbearable pain of a separation, a death, a choice that must be made – all these have the potential to bring terror, panic, and misery. Such thoughts lead to my considering all the events that frighten us. Is this it? we find ourselves asking. This really bad storm might cave in the roof. I could break my neck skiing down the hill. Such worries, like so many, center on losing our own lives – survival being such a strong compulsion that it’s the rare individual who can sacrifice their own for another. It happens, but how often?
In any case, all this got me thinking whether poets have anything to offer to make this experience we call life easier, easier to understand, easier to bear.
Exploration 1: Consider writing a love letter to a person, place of object of your choice.
Exploration 2: Consider what “touching” means in your life.
Exploration 3: Why do hurricanes get human names? There has to be a reason.
1 We dwell between infinities.
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2 Only touch (appropriately)
3. Carol's aftermath scared our neighbors into preemptively cutting down their beautiful trees, which forced me to move to the boondocks where the fate of all the trees in my view would be in my hands.
Poifect! Do I sniff out some squibishness? Watch out on your travels for Burma Shave making a comeback and stealing your growing collection of excellent squibs - squi-bites / sq-are / squi-ary etc. Goodness! I may have found a new literary form! Move over you squigglies.
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