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 #251

Four Seasons in the Dining Room

In the winter

they planned their flight

In the spring

he fell

backwards down

a flight of stairs

In the summer

he didn’t know where he was

How are the glaciers

he asked me over the phone

In the fall—

it was always the fall—

he was still falling

but he was home

He could even play the piano

In the winter

a cough shook him so hard

ribs broke

When he came home

from the hospital

he was in the dining room

music was falling

from the China cabinet

from a little CD player

above the hospital bed

Music was falling

slantwise

like the gold ray

of the Annunciation

in medieval paintings

Music was falling

Four Seasons

Vivaldi

He listened to the music

It lifted him up

carried him

made it easier to breathe

And then it was easier to rest

from the work

of breathing altogether

––Jennifer Clarvoe

In a conversation decades ago, Mary Oliver told me that a poem, when it was finished, is the culmination of a thousand carefully considered choices. Or ten thousand. The poet must live inside each subsequent draft of the text until every decision, great or small––which originally appeared through inspiration, chance, or sheer mystery––has now been, if not settled in the poet’s mind, then at least rendered for what it is. We hone our work as best we can, but every experienced writer well knows that another day––another change in circumstance or the cerebral weather––might easily throw the poem into a new light, unsettling even those decisions of which one felt most confident. So when Jennifer Clarvoe first showed me this poem from a manuscript-in-progress, I was immediately struck by her choice of omitting all punctuation (something she does not routinely do.) But I had to abide with the poem for a time in order to fully appreciate how that one choice was affecting everything within this pared-down deeply-affecting narrative.

Beginning with the title, we are prepared for a round of seasons to pass within this verse (or perhaps the cycles of many years.) “In the winter/ they planned their flight”––and these unnamed protagonists are about to engage in one of the activities many couples prize above all others: travel, perhaps to some longed-for destination. (Of course, flight could also imply ‘escape from’––and, for some reason, Carpaccio’s “The Flight into Egypt” popped into my mind, a painting depicting the Holy Family trying to escape a cruel fate for their newly-blessed household.) But before we readers can conjure the excitement of airline tickets and packed luggage, the poem darts ahead: “In the spring/ he fell/ backwards down/ a flight of stairs”. Even before it was confirmed by the other poems surrounding it in the manuscript, the image of aging parents was becoming clear. And that provoked thoughts of the situation we all must ultimately contend with––despite its unpredictability and infinite variety––as an inescapable fate. Did it begin to feel to you that the seasons were suddenly speeding up? Summer/confusion (the pathos of those imagined glaciers, just when the world was turning a lush green); autumn/piano (and oh, the ineffable comfort of music!); winter again, and those brittle ribs, the agony provoked by every labored breath. What torment is worse than the empathetic pain we cannot help but take on––witnessing the suffering of someone we love, and which we are powerless to alleviate? Perhaps you shared my experience that our mounting sense of helplessness within this poem is magnified by the lack of punctuation. Stepping away from her usual measured pentameters, Jennifer told me these “falling” lines felt “vertiginous.” These are days of a spiraling descent––and, despite the small glories, the inexorable shadow chills the mind. The lack of any typographical escapement mechanism, which would regulate the clock’s gears and keep time from spinning out of control, helps build a sense of desperation. To be sure, there are moments of intense beauty presented here––the imagined strains of Vivaldi sweeping past, or the gorgeous phrasing the poet presents: “Music was falling/ slantwise/ like the gold ray/ of the Annunciation/ in medieval paintings;” they give the heart an almost-tangible lift. But these are interwoven with a slow-accumulating grief, as we anticipate a time when (and, to my mind, it’s the most tragic realization a child can have) it must eventually come as a relief that our parents are about to be freed from time’s cruel mechanism.

Jennifer’s poem, “Four Seasons…,” will appear in her collection PIANO PIANO which, I am happy to report, is set to be published by Unbound Edition Press in April of 2026. Professor of English, Emerita, from Kenyon College, she is the author of two previous poetry books––and her work has been featured in scores of journals such as Poetry Northwest; and the Triquarterly, Threepenny, and Yale Reviews. Honors and awards abound. What I find most attractive in her work is an unbridled intellectual curiosity, and a deep commitment to the communal power language has in our lives. Studying the varied choices which enrich her writing offers a masterclass in how each adjustment, every nuance adds to the overall effect. “A poem is never finished, only abandoned”––or so Paul Valéry reminds us. Perhaps we poets make what choices we are capable of making, with whatever skill and discernment we have acquired over many seasons––and then we must surrender the poem to the world, and our hearts to this human circumstance.

The Red Letters

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

and the Boston Area Small Press and Poetry Scene

http://dougholder.blogspot.com

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