Red Letter Poem #263

 The Red Letters

 

 

In ancient Rome, feast days were indicated on the calendar by red letters.

To my mind, all poetry and art serves as a reminder that every day we wake together beneath the sun is a red-letter day.

 

––Steven Ratiner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Red Letter Poem #263

 

 

 

 

Aunt M.S.                     

When she makes it down the stairs     one step

one     stops at the landing to catch

what breath she can

and hobbles into the kitchen

her cane     a starless wand

I want to hide behind the woodstove

disappear     like springtime 

Sometimes I can’t believe

I let her stay          but

she came with the house          fine

print            

after the lawyer’s signature

Oh          she buys her own

food     pays her way          

Thursdays          Amazon     drops     boxes 

on the porch          She sorts

and puts away

keeps herself

clean     charges 

up her hearing aids  

 

She tries          not to complain

but her body isn’t right           

her back aches          her legs tire.                  

her arthritic fingers

often          clench so tight

she hooks them onto a table edge

to bend them     straight            

Nights     when sleep eludes

her     she paces 

the third-floor corridor like a wraith

 

I’ve seen her glide     cane-less

in her Emily-white nightdress

toward the window blessed with stars

I’ve learned not to check on her          unless           

she calls for me

She calls when she’s afraid     of what

she might become

and I climb the stairs

                                          one step

one                

and take her in my arms 

          as though I love her.

 

 

––Susan Roney O'Brien

 

 

 

What else is a poet to do?

Susan Roney-O’Brien has spent much of her life focused on the written word. She’s published two chapbooks and three full-length poetry collections, the most recent being Thira (‎Kelsay Books). It’s an entrancing sequence of poems that conjures within our consciousness a once-thriving ancient Aegean isle so that we might appreciate, in simpler terms, what is at the heart of our human enterprise on this planet. Her poetry has been published widely, translated into Mandarin and Braille, and much honored for its deep and life-affirming spirit. So what should such a writer do when confronted with a devastating medical diagnosis––multiple sclerosis––and the cascading fears and dark thoughts it engenders? She writes about it, of course––even if it upends part of her creative approach and wreaks havoc with her emotions. Even if it lays bare her wounded spirit and surprising vulnerabilities––the very things we humans tend to hide from public view. She follows the twisting paths her imagination takes her, so that it might help her come to terms with what is taking place––within her body and around her in the world. She tells the truth––or tries to, as best she can. And so a whole new collection of poems is emerging slowly which will––at least according the samples I’ve read so far––break readers’ hearts while, at the same time, fortifying them.



One continuing character who appears in the manuscript is this ‘Aunt M. S.’, a sort of familial projection of the illness so that the lifelong self––who has always been the one to navigate torrential language––can examine this new incarnation with a bit of objectivity. I immediately felt this poem has some kinship with Sylvia Plath’s “In Plaster” and, in each case, the aim is simply survival. I was taken by the way the unsteadiness of her condition helps shape the form of the poem, negotiating its uneven gaps and hesitations. “When she makes it down the stairs one step/ one stops at the landing to catch…”––my heart was caught off-guard by the gap between one step and that one half-rhyme stop, catching our breath as well. The narrator has the urge to hide behind that familiar source of warmth, the kitchen woodstove––a metaphorical echo of that other fervid dream of new life: spring. Her new aunt attends to the quotidian tasks of contemporary life (groceries, Amazon boxes, charging the hearing aid), trying “not to complain” (which, of course, means she does––and here we can’t help but join our own sufferings to hers). But when “her arthritic fingers/ often clench so tight/ she hooks them onto a table edge/ to bend them straight,” the more profound nature of what the speaker (no, we’re not able to maintain that literary convention––what the poet) is going through is viscerally present.



And yet there are moments when this new version of Susan glides cane-less down the hallway “like a wraith”, dressed in white, the way her literary ancestor from Amherst might have done. And the poet does––what each of us must learn to do when facing our own fragile bodies, the longing of our mortal selves: “I climb the stairs/ one step/ one/” (oh, the profound despair and joy, to take that one treacherous step again, to navigate these precarious lines of poetry) “and take her in my arms/ as though I love her.” As though. Sometimes that’s the best we can do, though we pray we’ll uncover love’s deeper resources, our deepest selves. Not surprisingly, William Stafford’s moving little lyric, “Bess,” came to mind. In it, the local librarian hides her cancer diagnosis from her community. “She had to keep her friends from knowing/”––and the enjambment of his line-break trips up our expectations, not unlike Susan’s uneven spacing––“how happy they were.” Indeed, because just a mention of her mortal jeopardy would cast our ‘ordinary’ lives into such relief, how could we be anything but happy, not to be facing what Bess does––what Susan does––every morning. I think that’s the gift both of these poets are offering to readers: be glad; your day is not as hard as it might be. Savor what is present now: this sunlit window, this bowl of cut hydrangeas, these beloved voices echoing in our homes, this sip of morning coffee, this poem.

              

 

 

 

The Red Letters

 

* If you would like to receive these poems every Friday in your own in-box – or would like to write in with comments or submissions – send correspondence to:

steven.arlingtonlaureate@gmail.com

 

 

* To learn more about the origins of the Red Letter Project, check out an essay I wrote for Arrowsmith Magazine:

https://www.arrowsmithpress.com/community-of-voices

 

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

 

* For updates and announcements about Red Letter projects and poetry readings, please follow me on BlueSky

@stevenratiner.bsky.social

and on Twitter          

@StevenRatiner

 

And coming soon:

a new website to house all the Red Letter archives at StevenRatiner.com