Where we’ve been and where we’re going, featuring four poems by Jean Nordhaus, David Galloway, Naomi Thiers and Jaque Reed.
7 minutes
TRANSCRIPT
Hi! Happy New Year! Happy return to normal life after the excitement of the holidays. In addition to celebrating Christmas and Hanukkah and Beethoven’s birthday and New Year’s and so much more, I also celebrated my birthday a few days ago—it’s never too late to send a card, by the way. And of course, it made me think about birthdays—how, when you’re little, a birthday means presents; and when you’re a little older, it means getting your driver’s license or being able to vote or being able to drink. And then you get to a point where your birthday means a time to reflect on where you’ve been and where you’re going. So on this edition of Burning Bright, four reflective poems.
Jean Nordhaus said, “I was in the process of giving away my husband’s clothing after his death, when I came upon his ties hanging on the back of his closet door. It set me thinking about men and work and how important it was for men of his generation to learn how to properly tie a tie.” Here’s Jean’s poem “Elegy for the Ties.”
The ties make me sad,
little flags of patterned silk –
hung in tidy rows behind
the closet door, stripes,
chevrons, paisleys, fleurs-de-lys
(bright lilies of the field). I
stuff them down in the black bag
with the dark tweeds and herring-
bones, pinstripes and gabardines.
Ruthless. I am ruthless.
Perhaps these woolens in winters
to come will warm the legs of a
living man walking the streets
with a cast in his eye, a wild
song on his lips.
November,
dear fallen world, all color gone.
Dead leaves pile along the curb
to scatter in the wind. The lilies
neither toil nor spin. Now who
will loop the narrow end over and
under the wide in that learned ritual
of manhood, who will smooth and
snug the knot, so the short end
lies lightly behind the long?
“Elegy for the Ties,” Jean Nordhaus from Passager’s Winter 2022 issue.
David Galloway said that in the Samagrelo region of the country of Georgia, they make wine in large clay vessels called kvevri and that, when cleaning the kvevri, a man must sing to show he has not been overcome by the fumes of past wine.” That led David to write this next poem, “Samagrelo.”
The man climbs into the one-ton kvevri to
clean its baked clay innards, sunken-earth
cold, not a single microbe can remain to spoil
the next crop. Fumes of wines past rise to choke
him, which is why he sings, they all sing, one
rule besides the rule that man must do this task:
singing must leak from an open circle in the grass
like keening laments from the underworld, unceasing,
showing in every quavering note that you still breathe.
If only we lived each day thus, somewhere between silken
music & heartwrenching toil, between sweet wine &
salt sweat. Perhaps we always have, but never noticed
until now. Perhaps we always have, but never tried it
singing.
David Galloway’s poem “Samagrelo” from Passager’s Winter 2024 issue.
Back to the Winter 2022 issue . . . Naomi Thiers said she wrote this next poem for a woman
who recently had to move into assisted living and hoped that even as the woman might be feeling constrained and frightened in that new environment that she’s able to find small things of beauty and freshness. Here’s Naomi’s poem “A Wish for M.H.”
I hope there are sips of beauty
in your days – cupfuls even: scarlet
flowers in the courtyard of the Home,
hummingbird flash at your window,
shimmer of someone’s robe, or even
in the labyrinths your mind crawls,
memories of being a girl in China.
Beauty – wherever you can find it,
take it, Mi Fong.
Block out the reality:
your assigned metal bed,
the beige lobby. Snap your thread
to the world if you must.
Have beauty.
Resist.
“A Wish for M.H.” Naomi Thiers.
Jaque Reed said, “Old age gives me a chance to explore who I have been, who I am, and perhaps, in the brief time left, who I am becoming.” Here’s her poem “Rivers Are Forever.”
Down the river,
the small boat putters ahead
into yesterday.
Half-submerged roots
of ancient fallen trees
make filigreed gates
into the future.
Water lilies spread out from the banks,
leaving a narrow center pathway
for slow moving travelers
heading
from one part of the past to another.
There is no now.
It is all now.
A log is lined with disinterested turtles.
A pointed stick of driftwood
sharply turns its head
and flaps away
without a sound.
. . . heron . . .
A stand of hemlock
nods in recognition.
For no reason,
I hum to myself,
“Mary had a little lamb.”
It is grand to have no particular reason,
no particular destination.
Just one splendid circle of primeval being
following the current
into forever.
From Passager Issue 76, the Winter 24 issue, Jaque Reed’s poem “Rivers Are Forever.”
Belated happy birthday to my birthday twins, Beth Helvig and Ilene Dacker-Alon, and also Sir Isaac Newton, Doris Kearns Goodwin, and Sorrell Booke, a.k.a. Boss Hogg on The Dukes of Hazzard.
To subscribe to or learn more about Passager and its commitment to writers over 50, go to passagerbooks.com. You can download Burning Bright from Spotify, Apple and Google Podcasts, and various other podcast apps. Passager offers a 25% discount on the books and journal issues featured here on Burning Bright. Visit our website to see what’s on sale this week.
For Kendra, Mary, Christine, Rosanne, and the rest of the Passager staff, I’m a year older.
Due to the limitations of online publishing, poems may not appear in their original formatting.
