Red Letter Poem #212

 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 #212

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dikaryon

 

 

 

I study the thallus of mushrooms

to learn how to be a partner,

Becoming curious about mycelium,

tendrils boring underground,

chomping bacteria at the nut

of nuclei, dreaming of how, drowned, 

they flourish in the lightless earth 

and pop out as fruit to tease the sun.

 

Forming intricate patterns,

we never show our entire selves,

or need to fuse to be together,

the decay is vital, sucking what’s wasted 

and secreting sweet enzymes instead.

 

Once we are small enough

like tiny monomers,

I begin to branch towards you,

slender and threadlike as hyphae 

into an entangled ecology of arms

and legs, so intertwined 

we realize we must pop up

from time to time, gilled 

and sweating spores,

because the earth cannot contain

our union, and begins to need us.

 

 

 

                        ––Sara Cahill Marron 

 

 

 

 

"Poetry"

 

I, too, dislike it.
     Reading it, however, with a perfect contempt for it, one discovers in
     it, after all, a place for the genuine.

                                                ––Marianne Moore

 

 

I have a friend who only occasionally reads contemporary poetry, and always with a certain gleeful disdain.  Remembering the “perfect beauty” of poets like Keats and Shelley from his college days, he’ll take pleasure telling me about a new piece he saw in the New Yorker or some prestigious literary magazine, questioning what possible value “this gibberish” can have.  “Half the time, I can’t even comprehend what they’re talking about, or why they’re raging on about it in such perplexing ways.  It’s like they’re speaking some new language––maddening!”  I commiserate, but offer to explain to him what I find valuable and, in fact, extremely compelling in even the most challenging poems––though I warn him in advance the answer will probably not be very satisfying.  My friend looks at me expectantly.  So this is what I tell him about the contemporary poem: half the time, I can’t even comprehend what they’re talking about, or why they’re raging on about it in such perplexing ways.  It’s like they’re speaking some new language––it’s maddening. . .and startling. . .and invigorating. . .and sometimes, as I read, I can almost feel the little neural tangles lighting up, connecting my mind to something beyond itself which, only a moment earlier, it could never have anticipated. 

 

Needless to say, my companion was unconvinced.

 

All this came to mind because I’ve been reading poetry by Sara Cahill Marron.  The author of three poetry collections, Sara serves as the Associate Editor of the fine journal, Beltway Poetry Quarterly, as well as Co-publisher of its Beltway Editions––all the while, working as a Federal prosecutor.  (Clearly Sara is also the inventor of a new device for multiplying the hours in each solar day.)  She’s certainly written lovely straight-forward lyrics, but at other times she’ll produce poems quite unlike anything else I’ve ever read.  Her 2022 book, Call Me Spes from MadHat Press, is a case in point.  The collection is framed as the reportage of an insatiable and self-aware AI operating system, sucking up language from every aspect of our lives.  It’s trying to construct a more encompassing model of human consciousness––even as the mortal speakers around it are struggling to comprehend the faulty machinery of their own fickle hearts.  When I received this new poem, “Dikaryon”, I was immediately mystified and entranced, making a detour over to Google Search for a quick crash-course in mycology and its obscure terminology.  In simplest terms, dikaryon refers to organisms (usually in the fungi family) that contain two genetically distinct nuclei in the same cell.  They’re capable “of participating in repeated cell division as separate entities, even before their ultimate fusion.”  An intriguing concept: two ‘selves’ within one body, and the furious energies that result.  For Sara, it’s an icon for something in our complex human nature––or perhaps the poem is depicting what takes place between two love-bound beings amidst moments of passion.  I don’t know for certain, and don’t feel the need to know––because I continue to be captivated by the poem’s deepening mystery.  Who would have ever imagined terms like mycelium and hyphae occurring within a lyric poem––or that such a text would seethe with a palpable sexual tension?  When I’m willing to be engaged by verse such as this––no matter how impenetrable it might seem at first glance––I end up discovering new territory within the thicket of my own consciousness, a place which offered no apparent inroads. . .until now.

 

Perhaps it’s time to update Marianne Moore’s sly and often-quoted ars poetica: Indeed, I, too, dislike it––and love it––all at the same time.  Dizzying, perhaps, but not inappropriate when I think of all the ways some contemporary poems insinuate themselves into my consciousness––how they’re capable of elevating the heart rate, inflaming the neural pathways, all while provoking what William Blake referred to as the energy of “Eternal Delight”.  For me, that perfect contempt arises from all the myriad ways poems––traditional and cutting edge––crash-and-burn, chasing the elusive Grail of ‘the new.’  And yet I am continually humbled by certain qualities that seem to be integral throughout the diverse artform: the desire to continue investigating our confounding human nature; a willingness to embrace even the genre’s own contradictory impulses––brutal honesty embedded within pure artifice.  But mainly, I find myself moved (not often, but often enough) by poetry’s determination to speak honestly to a real or imagined listener, trusting that somehow, within this intensified musical language, the I and we will––if not fuse––then at least regard each other with fresh eyes, producing new possibilities in the process.  Moore reluctantly discovers in poetry a place for the genuine.  I feel compelled to add: discovers––hidden within our own egocentric, fearful, easily-distracted selves––a corresponding place for authenticity.  All this, spurred on by something as simple as inky signs across a page.  How can you not embrace an artform that aspires to all that?