Top of the Stove

 

Hubert Shuptrine

 

Top of the Stove

And then she would lift her griddle
tool from the kindling bin, hooking one
end through a hole in the cast-iron disk
to pry it up with a turn of her wrist.

Our faces pinked over to watch coal
chunks churn and fizz. This was before
I had language to say so, the flatiron
hot all day by the kettle, fragrance

of coffee and coal smoke over
the kitchen in a mist. What did I know?
Now they've gone. Language remains.
I hear her voice like a lick of flame

to a bone-cold day. Careful, she says.
I hold my head close to see what she means.

David Baker

 

 

"This was before I had language..."

 

Here, a poem that fits me like an envelope.

I am grieving the deaths of my mother and father. 

They passed away last year, only days apart.

They raised us kids on a homestead in the Back of Nowhere.

So the sounds and smells surrounding a wood stove are the sounds and smells of my childhood.

 

The painting of the empty chair by the stove - it says it all.

 

 

"They've gone." 

 

But how blessed I was then, how blessed I am still, to have had them.

 

 

What the Light Teaches

Steven Outram

What the Light Teaches

Language is the house with lamplight in its windows,

visible across fields. Approaching, you can hear

music; closer, smell

soup, bay leaves, bread - a meal for anyone

who has only his tongue left.

It's a country; home, family;

abandoned, burned down; whole lines dead, unmarried.

For those who can't read their way in the streets,

or in the gestures and faces of strangers,

language is the house to run to;

in wild nights, chased by dogs and other sounds,

when you've been lost a long time,

when you have no other place.

There are nights in the forest of words

when I panic, every step into thicker darkness,

the only way out to write myself into a clearing,

which is silence.

Nights in the forest of words

when I'm afraid we won't hear each other

over clattering branches, over

both our voices calling.

In winter, in the hour

when the sun runs liquid then freezes,

caught in the mantilla of empty trees;

when my heart listens

through the cold stethoscope of fear,

your voice in my head reminds me

what the light teaches.

Slowly you translate fear into love,

the way the moon's blood is the sea.

Anne Michaels

This is one of my favorite images - light from a distant window. If you’ve ever been out for a long walk at night when the air turns chill, you’ll know that nothing can make you feel more lonesome or full of longing than the light of a home window. It can be either the anticipation of warmth and welcome, or the cruel reminder that you are outside.  I absolutely love the line, “Language is the house with lamplight in its windows, visible across fields.” I have to pause and think. Is she saying that language is the hope of warmth and belonging, the invitation to relationships, to shelter? “Language is the house to run to.” How interesting. Until this poem, I had not thought of it like that. Writing, speech, language, can be a place to find yourself when you’ve been lost. It’s true, isn’t it? “Slowly you translate fear into love.” And isn’t that exactly what we’re attempting? To write out (or speak out) the darkness, the lostness, the loneliness – to work our way Home? Is Language that magic? Can words do all that?

Heraclitus on Rivers

Joseph Benwell Clark, Self Portrait

Heraclitus on Rivers

Nobody steps into the same river twice.
The same river is never the same
Because that is the nature of water.
Similarly your changing metabolism
Means that you are no longer you.
The cells die, and the precise
Configuration of the heavenly bodies
When she told you she loved you
Will not come again in this lifetime.
You will tell me that you have executed
A monument more lasting than bronze;
But even bronze is perishable.
Your best poem, you know the one I mean,
The very language in which the poem
Was written, and the idea of language,
All these things will pass away in time.

Derek Mahon


"You are no longer you." This poem poses one of the profound questions of life. What makes us who we are? And if we are constantly changing within our cells and metabolism, and our language and ideas and relationships are changing too - how can we know who we are? What statement can we possibly make that will continue to be true throughout time? And what remains when everything has changed? I can't think of many deeper questions than these. The poem is a breath of fresh air to me, as if Mahon opened a window in a dead-air room and let in the wind. Finally, someone not pretending to be okay, someone not in thrall to the illusion of "knowing oneself". 
  

 

From March 1979

Unknown

From March 1979

Weary of all who come with words, words but no language
I make my way to the snow-covered island.
The untamed has no words.
The unwritten pages spread out on every side!
I come upon the tracks of deer in the snow.
Language but no words.

Thomas Transtromer

It's something to think about. How much of our talk really says anything? How many of our conversations, writings, books - poetry even, is meaningful? Is it only when we're stripped down to life and death essentials that we actually speak?