Author: Christina's Words

“The darkness around us is deep.” ~ William Stafford

“Ever” by Meghan O’Rourke

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Never, never, never, never, never.
—King Lear

Even now I can’t grasp “nothing” or “never.”
They’re unholdable, unglobable, no map to nothing.
Never? Never ever again to see you?
An error, I aver. You’re never nothing,
because nothing’s not a thing.
I know death is absolute, forever,
the guillotine—gutting—never to which we never say goodbye.
But even as I think “forever” it goes “ever”
and “ever” and “ever.” Ever after.
I’m a thing that keeps on thinking. So I never see you
is not a thing or think my mouth can ever. Aver:
You’re not “nothing.” But neither are you something.
Will I ever really get never?
You’re gone. Nothing, never—ever.

 

Copyright © 2015 by Meghan O’Rourke. Originally published in Poem-a-Day on July 13, 2015, by the Academy of American Poets.

“Dear One Absent This Long While” by Lisa Olstein

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It has been so wet stones glaze in moss;
everything blooms coldly.

I expect you. I thought one night it was you
at the base of the drive, you at the foot of the stairs,

you in a shiver of light, but each time
leaves in wind revealed themselves,

the retreating shadow of a fox, daybreak.
We expect you, cat and I, bluebirds and I, the stove.

In May we dreamed of wreaths burning on bonfires
over which young men and women leapt.

June efforts quietly.
I’ve planted vegetables along each garden wall

so even if spring continues to disappoint
we can say at least the lettuce loved the rain.

I have new gloves and a new hoe.
I practice eulogies. He was a hawk

with white feathered legs. She had the quiet ribs
of a salamander crossing the old pony post road.

Yours is the name the leaves chatter
at the edge of the unrabbited woods.

Lisa Olstein, “Dear One Absent This Long While” from Radio Crackling, Radio Gone. Copper Canyon Press. Copyright 2006 by Lisa Olstein.

***

“Dear Friend” by Eleni Mandell

“It Was Like This: You Were Happy” by Jane Hirshfield

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It was like this:
you were happy, then you were sad,
then happy again, then not.

It went on.
You were innocent or you were guilty.
Actions were taken, or not.

At times you spoke, at other times you were silent.
Mostly, it seems you were silent—what could you say?

Now it is almost over.

Like a lover, your life bends down and kisses your life.

It does this not in forgiveness—
between you, there is nothing to forgive—
but with the simple nod of a baker at the moment
he sees the bread is finished with transformation.

Eating, too, is a thing now only for others.

It doesn’t matter what they will make of you
or your days: they will be wrong,
they will miss the wrong woman, miss the wrong man,
all the stories they tell will be tales of their own invention.

Your story was this: you were happy, then you were sad,
you slept, you awakened.
Sometimes you ate roasted chestnuts, sometimes persimmons.

 

From After (Harper Perennial, 2006). Copyright © 2006 by Jane Hirshfield.

“Things Seem Strong” by Jane Hirshfield

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Things seem strong.
Houses, trees, trucks—a chair, even.
A table.

You don’t expect one to break.
No, it takes a hammer to break one,
a war, a saw, an earthquake.

Troy after Troy after Troy seemed strong
to those living around and in them.
Nine Troys were strong,
each trembling under the other.

When the ground floods
and the fire ants leave their strong city,
they link legs and form a raft, and float, and live,
and begin again elsewhere.

Strong, your life’s wish
to continue linking arms with life’s eye blink, life’s tear well,
life’s hammering of copper sheets and planing of Port Orford cedar,
life’s joke of the knock-knock.

Knock, knock. Who’s there?
I am.
I am who?

That first and last question.

Who once dressed in footed pajamas,
who once was smothered in kisses.
Who seemed so strong
I could not imagine your mouth would ever come to stop asking.

 

Published at The New Yorker, Sep. 5, 2016

Four Monostiches by John Ashbery

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Note from Christy: A monostich, according to Wikipedia, is “a poem which consists of a single line. (It) has been described as ‘a startling fragment that has its own integrity’ [2] and ‘if a monostich has an argument, it is necessarily more subtle.’ [3]”

THE CATHEDRAL IS

slated for demolition.

***

I HAD THOUGHT THINGS WERE GOING ALONG WELL

But I was mistaken.

***

OUT OVER THE BAY THE RATTLE OF FIRECRACKERS

And, in the adjacent waters, calm.

***

WE WERE ON THE TERRACE DRINKING GIN AND TONICS

When the squall hit.

***

All four poems are from Ashbery’s As We Know  (1979)

John Ashbery, July 28, 1927 – September 3, 2017.

Further Reading:

“John Ashbery, a Singular Poet Whose Influence Was Broad, Dies at 90” via The New York Times

“Read John Ashbery’s Poetry” via The New York Times

“John Ashbery Changed the Rules of American Poetry” via The New Yorker

“Poet John Ashbery dies age 90” via The Guardian

From Christy: I confess, I’ve never really “got” or “understood” Ashbery’s poetry; his monolithes and haiku are more up my alley than his longer pieces. But I like what Megan O’Rourke said, as quoted by The Guardian’s article above: Writing for Slate, the critic and poet Meghan O’Rourke advised readers “not to try to understand the poems but to try to take pleasure from their arrangement, the way you listen to music”. Perhaps I’ll take her advice and try again some time. And if I’m still confused–which I’m sure to be–I’ll take solace in the following: Interviewed by the Associated Press in 2008, Ashbery joked that if he could turn his name into a verb, “to Ashbery”, it would mean “to confuse the hell out of people”.