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 #306
The Three Sorrows
To know you’re
incomplete—
Death natters
in the squirrel’s ear all day
but I’m mindful
of something larger the width of all shadow
Red fruits
flourish on the glassy tree I have no name for
To
love the thing and not its substance
To
love the object not its atoms
You
can love only the differentiated
which
means you can’t love everything
and
from this the first sorrow arises
The neighbors
have installed a plastic owl on a post
The long
sloping roof of their red barn has buckled in the middle
like a piece of
wet cardboard
Yellow backhoe
with its shadow hard beneath it
You
can’t understand everything
You’re
always leaving something out
which
means there’s much you must ignore
which
means you can’t love everything
and
from this the second sorrow arises
Fly nuthatch
goldfinch sparrow woodpecker rabbit chipmunk groundhog
The intelligent
stance of the blue jay
The less
intelligent stance of the titmouse
Lavender stripe
on my left forearm where I burned it cooking drunk
You can’t love poison and
radiation
unless they’re in the proper place
which means you can’t love those
places
which means you can’t love everything
and from this the third sorrow arises
Grief
enclosures in the trees black warrens
Pockets of deep
shadow out of which I’m paid
Roadside ivy
closing its summer home one leaf at a time
Where the lawn
comes down to a storm drain a granite slab
––Jonathan Weinert
“There was
a child went forth every day,” begins Walt Whitman’s entrancing poem from Leaves
of Grass, celebratory and elegiac all in one long-lined out-of-breath ramble
through the landscape he loved. “And the
first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or love or
dread, that object he became,// And that object became part of him for the
day or a certain part of the day . . . . or for many years
or stretching cycles of years.” I
suspect that Jonathan Weinert has received his commission from that storied
child––and from the Good Gray Bard himself (as have almost all contemporary
poets, in one way or another)––to continue the exploration, no matter where it
takes him. And so he does in this new
and wonderfully intricate poem. It
begins with incompleteness (ah, the beauty of that em-dash abruption!),
and accepts that condition as both his starting point and his mortal
inheritance. But like Whitman’s child,
it only spurs him to venture tirelessly, observe voraciously––as if the
momentum itself will, if not solve, then soothe the despair waiting in those
widening shadows. Indeed, “Death natters
in the squirrel’s ear all day” (as it does in ours as well), but that won’t
keep us from relishing the possibility being offered with this very next breath. We’re struck by the sheer profusion of our
immediate environment (the delight of that little unpunctuated burst: “Fly
nuthatch goldfinch sparrow woodpecker rabbit chipmunk groundhog”?) Whitman, too, was fond of lists–– and naming,
of course, is a form of praise and possession. But beauty is not only a catalog of the
‘eye-pleasing’ details, but all the most vivid sense-impressions. The cocked head of the blue jay, yes––but
also the sagging barn roof and rusting storm drain. The protagonist of this poem is experiencing
the elemental thrill of being alive in the physical world. And he sweeps us along with his enthusiasm.
But
the path is not without its obstacles.
The more innocent yearning of the sensory mind finds itself at odds with
the analytical/philosophical faculties. That
other voice––offset here in those italicized passages––has an incessant need to
parse and comprehend, to step back from experience in order to deliberate. And that’s at the core of the tension most of
us experience daily, the throbbing heart/head conundrum: can we allow ourselves
the (dare I say it?) joy of simply waking to yet another day, or must we
first demonstrate (to whatever parental/canonical authority we carry inside us)
that we are cognizant of all that’s involved?
This speaker carries that conflict seared into his flesh: “Lavender
stripe on my left forearm where I burned it cooking drunk.” He can’t help but admire the beauty of what
was once produced by pain––pain so acute, we fragile humans sometimes
use/misuse whatever analgesic we can get our hands on. Those ‘three sorrows’ are, perhaps,
inescapable––but we can work toward a finer, kinder relationship with that
chorus of consciousness echoing inside our heads. Because despite it all, we’ve come upon the
central element of this abundant garden of delights––“Red fruits flourish on
the glassy tree I have no name for”––and, for knowledge’s sake, we are willing
to take a bite.
Jonathan
has authored three books of poems, with two new ones forthcoming. A Slow Green Sleep was the winner
of the Saturnalia Books Editors Prize; and In the Mode of Disappearance,
was awarded the Nightboat Poetry Prize. A
new collection, The New England Book of Dying and Living, is due out
from Saturnalia in 2027 and will contain today’s poem. Ghost Smoke, a book-length hybrid
collaboration with H. L. Hix, will be published next month by Project Poëtica /
Bridwell Press. And so where does today’s
“…Sorrows” leave us? If the poem
has not succeeded in harmonizing those conflicting inner voices, what good has
it done? I think it suggests that the
reward may lie, not in muting the dissonance, but embracing it. Dread is indeed lurking––but it’s out of those
“Pockets of deep shadow” that the hungry mind is paid in the coin of the
imaginative realm. On some mornings,
“the granite slab” down by the storm drain may bring to mind a tombstone. On others, a protective barrier, a jumping-off
point. Yet another poetic forefather once
wrote: “Sorrow prepares you for joy. It
violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space
to enter. It shakes the yellow leaves
from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their
place.” That was Jalal al-Din Muhammad
Rumi, 13th century Sufi mystic-poet, and yet another wide-eyed
child. I suspect if Jonathan, Walt, and Jalāl
met hiking across that wild field, they would have much to discuss. I, for one, would happily be invited along on
that outing.
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
* The weekly installment is also available at
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 visit the Red Letter
archives at: https://StevenRatiner.com/category/red-letters/
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