For When People Ask by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I want a word that means
okay and not okay,
more than that: a word that means
devastated and stunned with joy.
I want the word that says
I feel it all all at once.
The heart is not like a songbird
singing only one note at a time,
more like a Tuvan throat singer
able to sing both a drone
and simultaneously
two or three harmonics high above it—
a sound, the Tuvans say,
that gives the impression
of wind swirling among rocks.
The heart understands swirl,
how the churning of opposite feelings
weaves through us like an insistent breeze
leads us wordlessly deeper into ourselves,
blesses us with paradox
so we might walk more openly
into this world so rife with devastation,
this world so ripe with joy.

For When People Ask

Have you not ever wished for such a word, one that means okay and not okay, when you are not quite either. A word that means devastated and stunned with joy – the complexity of living one’s life with the paradox of grieflove. She is seeking a word that says I feel it all all at once. I missed that second ‘all’ on first reading – all of it, all at once.

Tuvan throat singing, as I’ve learned, is a technique which originated in central Asia for singing two or more pitches at the same time, one deep, one high. What a perfect metaphor for the contrast between sorrow and joy, those intermingled emotions we all must encounter some time. The wind swirling as the heart swirls, the churning of opposite feelings.

Many poets from Blake in the 18th century, to the current Mark Nepo have written to express this commingling of apparently opposite feelings. Here Rosemerry gives us this uniquely aural image of throat singing, a way to live with this paradox, to be in this world so rife with devastation, / this world so ripe with joy. I am touched by her words, by the universality of this experience.

Night thinks it’s crying again by Kelli Russell Agodon

and I keep listening to a song about autumn 

where an apple tastes like longing and every leaf 

in the maple tree tries to explain loss

through a series of colors—hectic orange,

indifferent red, a kind of gold that speaks

directly to God or moonbeams and in the dark

as I drive down wet roadways watching for deer

the only things I can see clearly

are the yellow leaves christening

my windshield and I think how we are taught

not to love too many, too much, the night,

the darkness, and I believe I am crying but it is

only rain.

Night thinks it’s crying again

It’s raining here where I am tonight and the idea of night thinking it is crying intrigues me, makes me want to know more. There is a song about autumn where an apple tastes like longing. There’s that word again, longing, that yearning we may not be able to articulate that sometimes comes with this season.

Where other poets might speak of the brilliant hues of autumn, Agodon tells us that every leaf / in the maple tree tries to explain loss through their changing colours. We’ve all recognized the hectic orange, but a gold that speaks directly to God or moonbeams – that stopped me in my tracks and threw all my commonplace descriptions out the window.

She says we are taught / not to love too many, too much. What does this mean? Is she speaking of the loss that these falling leaves embody? I believe I am crying but it is / only rain. Perhaps she wants us to know that this is a loss that is seasonal, not a time to grieve for this natural ending – no tears; it is only rain.

Longing by Julia Cadwallader-Staub

Consider the blackpoll warbler.

She tips the scales
at one ounce
before she migrates, taking off
from the seacoast to our east
flying higher and higher
ascending two or three miles
during her eighty hours of flight
until she lands,
in Tobago,
north of Venezuela
three days older,
and weighing half as much.

She flies over open ocean almost the whole way.

Oh she is not so different from us.
The arc of our lives is a mystery too.
We do not understand,
we cannot see
what guides us on our way:
that longing that pulls us toward light.

Not knowing, we fly onward
hearing the dull roar of the waves below.

Longing

I don’t even know if I would recognize a Blackpoll Warbler, with its tiny elegant markings of black and white and taupe (had to look it up), but this poem certainly made me consider it. How they live in Canada’s boreal forests, how they weigh a scant ounce, how they fly nearly 1800 miles nonstop over the Atlantic Ocean for their fall migration. Is this not astonishing?

These are merely facts, but it takes a poet to put them into words that show us the marvel of how they fly, ascending two or three miles / during her eighty hours of flight before these small miracles of being finally touch down in northern South America, three days older, / and weighing half as much.

What the poet really wants us to understand, I believe, is how The arc of our lives is a mystery too. We too are guided by what we cannot see, that longing that pulls us toward light. Without knowing how or why, we make our way onward, hearing the dull roar of the waves below. After all, she is not so different from us – the astounding miracle of our own lives.

August by George Bilgere

Just when you’d begun to feel
You could rely on the summer,
That each morning would deliver
The same mourning dove singing
From his station on the phone pole,
The same smell of bacon frying 
Somewhere in the neighborhood,
The same sun burning off
The coastal fog by noon,
When you could reward yourself
For a good morning’s work
With lunch at the same little seaside cafe
With its shaded deck and iced tea,
The day’s routine finally down
Like an old song with minor variations,
There comes that morning when the light
Tilts ever so slightly on its track,
A cool gust out of nowhere
Whirlwinds a litter of dead grass
Across the sidewalk, the swimsuits
Are piled on the sale table,
And the back of your hand,
Which you thought you knew,
Has begun to look like an old leaf.
Or the back of someone else’s hand.

August

I know, it’s September, but this poem captures for me some of the essence of August looking in the rear view mirror. I especially like the opening lines, Just when you’d begun to feel / You could rely on the summer. Isn’t that just how it is – feels like summer is just getting going, those warm days we’ve waited so long for and suddenly it’s coming to an end.

He has an evocative litany of sound and scent and sight associations with this time of year – we will each have our own. Then we have the day’s routine finally down / like an old song with minor variations. A splendid metaphor which feels recognizable, how we live our summer days reveling in our patterns, familiar habits that arise with the heat.

And then, the changes begin – the light, the cool gust out of nowhere, the sale table piled with swimsuits no longer wanted. He layers all this with a suggestion of aging, the autumn of our lives, how the back of your hand has begun to look like an old leaf, no longer so familiar. Yet, with all that, we still carry within us the rich ease of August into these fall months.