The Red Letter Poem 90

 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 #90

 

 

Ashen winter skies, bare black branches. . .and abundance.  Gail Mazur’s piece is born from this breathtakingly-beautiful contradiction.  It is one of the finest poems about trees that I’ve ever read (though immediately a voice in my mind contradicts that statement: not trees – daughters! – one of the most loving portrayals of the mother-daughter relationship I’ve ever encountered.)  And perhaps that, too, is part of the poem’s allure: it’s not about one or the other – and nothing so simple as metaphor; I experience it like a projection, through language, of a moment in a woman’s mind as she looks out at the world, her world.  I can almost feel those neural branches that bear the fruit of memory, that foster the weather of emotional impulse and imagination, throwing their shadows across the snowy page.  And because of that, I move along through these tercets in a kind of a winter hush, in an intimate engagement with this woman’s inner voice. 

 

And the speaker is undoubtedly a woman – though the poem made me pray that such generative power might be part of my being as well.  But if you place this poem side-by-side with another hibernal ‘tree’ poem, also written in three-line stanzas – Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man” – I think you’ll sense something of the yin and yang of human consciousness.  If, at this time of the year, you and I are rediscovering our “mind(s) of winter”, it may help us endure the cold season if we traverse the broad expanse and find our own place in the landscape.

 

Poet and educator, Gail Mazur has authored eight poetry collections, the most recent being Land’s End: New and Selected Poems (University of Chicago Press), and from which today’s Red Letter installment is drawn.  Among her many honors, Gail was finalist for the National Book Award, and recipient of numerous fellowships.  The venerable Blacksmith Poetry Series in Cambridge, MA – held near the spot of Longfellow’s fabled “village smithy” and (yet another ‘tree’ poem) that “spreading chestnut-tree” – which Gail created nearly fifty years ago, is still going strong.  It’s one more thing we can be grateful for as we cross another winter solstice.

 

 

Young Apple Tree, December

 

 

What you want for it you'd want

for a child: that she take hold;

that her roots find home in stony

 

winter soil; that she take seasons

in stride, seasons that shape and

reshape her; that like a dancer's,

 

her limbs grow pliant, graceful

and surprising; that she know,

in her branchings, to seek balance;

 

that she know when to flower, when

to wait for the returns; that she turn

to a giving sun; that she know

 

fruit as it ripens; that what's lost

to her will be replaced; that early

summer afternoons, a full blossoming

 

tree, she cast lacy shadows; that change

not frighten her, rather that change

meet her embrace; that remembering

 

her small history, she find her place

in an orchard; that she be her own

orchard; that she outlast you;

 

that she prepare for the hungry world

(the fallen world, the loony world)

something shapely, useful, new, delicious.

 

 

                                    –– Gail Mazur

 

 

The Red Letters 3.0: A New Beginning (Perhaps)   

At the outset of the Covid pandemic, when fear was at its highest, the Red Letter Project was intended to remind us of community: that, even isolated in our homes, we could still face this challenge together.  As Arlington’s Poet Laureate, I began sending out a poem of comfort each Friday, featuring the fine talents from our town and its neighbors.  Because I enlisted the partnership of seven local arts and community organizations, distribution of the poems spread quickly – and, with subscribers sharing and re-posting the installments, soon we had readers, not only throughout the Commonwealth, but across the country.  And I delighted in the weekly e-mails I’d receive with praise for the poets; as one reader recently commented: “You give me the gift of a quiet, contemplative break—with something to take away and reflect on.”

 

Then our circumstance changed dramatically again: following the murder of George Floyd, the massive social and political unrest, and the national economic catastrophe, the distress of the pandemic was magnified.  Red Letter 2.0 announced that I would seek out as diverse a set of voices as I could find – from Massachusetts and beyond – so that their poems might inspire, challenge, deepen the conversation we were, by necessity, engaged in.

 

Now, with widespread vaccination, an economic rebound, and a shift in the political landscape, I intend to help this forum continue to evolve – Red Letter 3.0.  For the last 15 months, I’ve heard one question again and again: when will we get back our old lives?  It may pain us to admit it, but that is little more than a fantasy.  Our lives have been altered irrevocably – not only our understanding of how thoroughly interdependent we are, both locally and globally, but how fragile and utterly precious is all that we love.  Weren’t you bowled over recently by how good it felt just to hug a friend or family member?  Or to walk unmasked through a grocery, noticing all the faces?  So I think the question we must wrestle with is this: knowing what we know, how will we begin shaping our new life?  Will we quickly forget how grateful we felt that strangers put themselves at risk, every day, so that we might purchase milk and bread, ride the bus to work, or be cared for by a doctor or nurse?  Will we slip back into our old drowse and look away from the pain so many are forced to endure – in this, the wealthiest nation on the planet?  Will we stop noticing those simple beauties all around us?  The poet Mary Oliver said it plainly: “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”  I will continue to offer RLP readers the work of poets who are engaged in these questions, hoping their voices will fortify all of ours.

 

Two of our partner sites will continue re-posting each Red Letter weekly: the YourArlington news blog (https://www.yourarlington.com/easyblog/entry/28-poetry/3070-redletter-111121), and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene (http://dougholder.blogspot.com).  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.