shake the shadow

Ether, I am old. Not ancient, not on my death bed, but old. Too old, more specifically, to continually fashion myself after the manner and modes of my mentors and betters. As I lay in bed last night editing a recent poem in my head (my most frequent and, unfortunately, most ineffectual sort of editing), it occurred to me that it was not J. H. Scott's voice warning about this cliche or his mental pen scratching out that hokey rhyme--it was the voice and pen of my mentors and betters. My little Obi Wan Kenobis speaking to me from your very own Nothingworld, dear Ether. And this was no isolated incident. I realized how pervasive are the voices of these Others in my editing process and, more discomfiting to me, how ultimately persuasive those voices are. I tossed, I turned, I got up to pee. Eventually, my own voice squeaked through, "You're getting too old for this."

Because at some point we have to let ourselves be ourselves. Authenticity. Actors on our own authority. Authorship. Not only good writing but so much of good living derives from the quality of our distinctions--even if it means we are doomed (no such thing but it I love the sound of that word) to being "inferior" or "marginal" in relation to the Others.

Can I evade the influence of my predecessors? No. On some level, no matter how I might protest, I will never even be able to shake the shadow of Shakespeare. How much less so my immediate influences? My thesis director to whom I owe the largest share of my development as a poet, my favorite contemporary poet, Andrew Hudgins, whose deft lines are at once flowing and formal, those of my peers I admire and envy? No, all of these and the many to come can not be avoided and should not be ignored. We are what we eat and we eat all the time--gobble what seems most delectable and too often glut on what we could really have done without--we require the nourishment of our surroundings for our sustenance as creative, authentic individuals.

That poem I was working on--well, it kinda sucked. To finish it, I decided, would be a waste of time. It just didn't jive with . . . wait . . . with what? On second thought, no . . . it's a mighty fine poem. Oh yes, it jove and it jives. With my mentors and betters? Not really. With me? Yeah, with me. I took a chance, stepped out of my mold, and proceeded in good faith. And it still kinda sucks. But I like it. And besides, I'm far too old to change it now.

Next poem.

in the aftermath

On the 27th of April, a violent storm plowed a massive swath of destruction across the the Southeast. The cost in life is unspeakable, the cost in property is incalculable. The damage runs deep-- beyond the death toll, beyond the structures--into the psyche of those affected by the devastation; a depth I cannot fathom. As a poet, I could not help but be fascinated by such an event; the poetic mind is, I think, less creative than it is empathetic and less that than morbidly curious--if not as a whole, than at least for me. So in the aftermath of the storm--the news coverage, the horrifying images--of course I was compelled by my blinking cursor to say something. To make note of the event if not sense of it. But I knew I was no match for the cataclysm. Nature, as she often does, had left me nonplussed.

A couple of days passed. I took stock of the storm's disarray, hoping to find my way into some aspect of its horror (empathy) or beauty (curiosity). Then I remembered something I heard on the radio when the tornado was bushwhacking Tuscaloosa. The meteorologist had said something about the debris--how it was turning up in Birmingham, falling from the sky.

Then I wrote the following poem. It does not do justice to the storm. Because it can not. In fact, the storm is intentionally distant, ravaging elsewhere, juxtaposed with the relative calm of a flower garden. Because flower gardens, I can do. EF-4 tornadoes--not so much. This is still a work in progress (and please do chime in, if so inclined) but I thought I'd share it while it's fresh.

Debris

“ . . .soon in glory bright unclouded . . .”

Tornadoes came to Alabama—commemorative

Stamp of blasted timber, shattered homes.

Miles away, Eugenia transplanted bulbs

Of tulip. Each time she stood, her spine radiated

Tendrils of flame. Wincing, she spaded

The soil. Winds flexed and muscled trees.

Eugenia sang her favorite hymn.

“ . . . all my sins and grief to bear . . .”

Tornadoes ambushed Tuscaloosa, spun

Cars and children and motel receipts

From clandestine loves. Hailstones the size

Of tulip bulbs. “ . . . what a privilege to carry . . .”

A photo fell in Eugenia’s garden, worse

For the weather—torn and grimed, missing

The head of the man beside the woman

Who smiled a smile for the ages, eyes cinched

Against a flash in the offing.

Eugenia hummed an interlude, surveyed

The sky—white clouds and blue on blue.

“ . . . o, what peace we often forfeit . . .”

Eugenia resumed. The photo flew

On a gust. She reached but her back caught fire.

She passed an hour supine, watching mementos

Fall, blinking off incidental splats of rain.

Litter like ashes like weeds in her garden—

To be plucked and shoe-boxed just in case.

“ . . . blessed Savior thou hast promised . . . "

Tornadoes plowed, Eugenia sang. A smile for the ages

Flew—mile after mile on weakening gales.