Oswego

September 22, 2021

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Seeking a calm place in the storm

I was going through things earlier this evening as I sorted and packed boxes for my big move, and came across this poem written in December 1978 when I was 27. It was the first actual, serious poem I had ever written, and I felt compelled to write it, as I was in the early stages of an agonizing period of depression.

The poem is about the anxiety that precedes the deepest pain one can know. Decades ago I had two best friends, the one-in-a-lifetime kind of friends. We could talk long into the night about anything. I still can hardly believe such a friendship could exist, but in fact it did. In the following poem I was afraid I’d lost that friendship, and in a sense I had, even though we’ve kept in touch sporadically over the years. So, it’s about very deep loss, because I had also lost my job at this time, but as I re-read it just a short while ago after many years, I realized it was also about hope, the calm and peace that comes from Nature, and, finally, healing and, yes, acceptance.

Untitled

Before a winter storm at night, clouds passed,

Filtering the full moons translucence,

Pushed by winds that touch the earth with chill,

Filling the night with expectancy.

I hear this winds urgency.

It is the harried pulse of the elements

Purging itself of the old season,

Endeavoring to change the air and land and Sea.

Mark these words I would throw at you, Wind!

But there are none.

Only stillness in me.

I seem to beckon you, sorrow

To follow me across the dunes to the sea’s edge.

And there, in semi-darkness of the moon’s half light

I close my hands and feel the wind upon me,

Rushing past, buffeting me with their force

Until I want to run.

Behind the wind, voices follow. They

become one voice.

I want to hear it more clearly.

Inscrutably muffled

It poises on the edge of the din

Until drowned by the tumult.

Voice, if you know who I am

Strike the stillness,

Breathe into the wind,

Banish the moon into the night

Let this storm pass so that I may know if the calm.

Warm night yields to cold day.

Marsh crackles with russet-brown deadness,

Alive with birds in migratory trance

Aloft in azure skies

Their winged march defies winter’s reproach.

Daylight, is what I see all that I know?

Night has told me otherwise.

Caught between seasons

I am their kin for a while. Warm

Warm and cold, my impulses are deadened,

Then slowly rekindled, revived

In the heat of recognition

Of knowing what I must do.

At night I think I see beyond this realm,

But the moon’s lantern becomes a burden.

Then I fall back, down from the lighthouse. A cat’s eyes glow in the dark.

Palmetto trees rustle unseen.

The surf’s distant murmur

Gently strikes muffled senses.

Though alone

I felt the presence

I could not know then,

For it left me as I slept for Deep Sleep,

Not even able to recall my dreams.

How I needed to be reminded of you.

My worth tangles in a sling – broken.

Imagined pain hardens resolve,

But leaves it spinning like a compass askew.

What magnet is it that pulls this splintered being toward it?

Feigned pleasures dance sluggishly in brittle imaginings

Underpinnings of unrealized desires

Bald entitlements, this world all around cries.

What have I done but think of illusions?

Fiery points of light skim water,

Shining clarity

Fool’s dreams

Have lost their poignancy,

For they are as ephemeral as reflections. Flexions.

I have taken in deep draughts of salt air, Feeling calm preceding joy.

Not the gull’s cry but the voice that came into me

Will shake the stasis

And reconcile night and day.