Red Letter Poem #93

 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 #93

 

Freud thought of art-making as a raid on the unconscious – a way to drag parts of our dreamlike (or nightmarish) processes out into the sunlight where they might be, if not fully understood, then at least experienced and, when necessary, defused.  And though I also find beauty in simple descriptives, and strength in the straight-forward voice, some of my favorite poems resemble waking dreams replete with images that seize the attention and meanings that are tantalizing but veiled.  And so it is with Bruce Bond’s new piece “Redactions. . .” from his forthcoming collection Invention of the Wilderness (Louisiana University Press.)  As in a dream, everything at first glance seems strangely connected and navigable – but then the questions erupt and certain phrases detonate (with shock as well as delight), and we keep moving toward what is just out of reach.

 

When I saw the poem’s title, I wondered whether this referred to the last presidential debates (well, scrums would be a better word) where, curiously, the health of our environment was rarely mentioned.  Or is the ‘last debate’ the ongoing conflict between those who fear irrevocable changes to our global climate and those who disbelieve the dire predictions of scientists?  Is the ‘blindness’ mentioned in the opening lines literal or metaphoric?  An affliction or a self-inflicted wound?  (Perhaps, like me, you heard an echo of your mother’s voice, warning you about running with scissors.)  Then come those gut-punch images (darkness falling “like a head into a basket”) and those disembodied voices littering the scene – and I begin to intuit the landscape through which I’m traveling.  The poem offers no easy answers because, frankly, there are none.  But perhaps, emerging from such a waking dream, I will feel inspired to ask better questions – of myself, of those who make decisions in my name.

 

Bruce is the author of (hold onto your hats, my fellow poets) thirty collections of poetry, including three new ones on the way; beside Invention…, we can look forward to Choreomania (Madhat Press), and Liberation of Dissonance (which received the Nicholas Schaffner Award for Literature in Music).  I was not surprised to learn that Bruce is a classical and jazz guitarist which, I assume, can’t help but strengthen both the musicality of his voice and the improvisational quality of his line.  He’s the Regents Emeritus Professor of English at the University of North Texas in Denton, and has received awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Texas Commission on the Arts.

 

 

Redactions from the Last Debate

 

 

When I was a child, one eye went blind

and then, in sympathy, the other.

 

Twins again with their own twin code.

Scissors, with your spectacles, tell me,

 

are they open or closed.  Are you no

less eyeless, the moment you are used. 

 

Was that you at my window, the chirp

of the screw that holds your blades together.

 

Was it God who said, let there be light,

and darkness fell like a head into a basket.

 

Like a floe in the arctic with a heap of cellular phones.

I fear we fear the wrong connections. 

 

The earth on the radio blows a plume

of smoke into the room, blackening the ceiling. 

 

The flies in the icecap long to be released.

What is any fly without the open air,

 

any blade of grass without the pasture.

When I swear that I am here, the field

 

there, wind everywhere among the shivers,

a slant of light through the window casts

 

a thousand tiny threads, a thousand hooks.

I see them, cut them, and the oceans rise.

 

 

     –– Bruce Bond

 

 

 

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/3091-redletter-123121), 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.