March 2019
Michele Stepto
michele.stepto@yale.edu
michele.stepto@yale.edu
NOTE: I wrote "The Unfinished Poem" in 2009, during the summer in Vermont, where I sometimes see bears crossing the road way ahead of me and wonder what they're up to and hope they'll be long gone into the forest by the time I catch up to the spot. Our paths have never crossed, a good thing because even the little black bear of New England is a dangerous creature, and not so little either. The bear always seems to know exactly where it is going, and one day I got to wondering where that might be, which reminded me of "White Bear King Valemon," Norway's folktale version of the Cupid and Psyche legend. That was a white bear, this was a black bear, so that got into the poem, and the story of the Penobscot boy who was adopted by bears--a true story--came along too. The poem earned a second place prize in Jewish Currents 2014 Reynes Poetry Contest, and was nominated for a Pushcart Prize by the editors of One Sentence Poems, where it appeared in 2017.
The Unfinished Poem
It is not like seeing a bear loping across your path
ahead of you on the road
in the evening light
its fur rippling over its muscles and blacker than the dark
coming on, as black as licorice
or anthracite
as it finds its opening into the twilit woods and you idly
wonder what errand this moderate
hurry might
serve and whether this particular bear, however black
he might seem, could possibly be
the Norwegian White
Bear King ambling the woods toward the castle
and the princess waiting there, waiting
so they write
to marry a bear and change him back into a man
after sleeping with him (no questions asked
and never catching sight
of his true shape) for three or four nights (just feeling his fur
in the dark, silky and soft and
neither black nor white)
or else that Penobscot boy who got lost in the woods
and was taken in by a family of bears who
loved him despite
his being human, though he wasn't that for long, not
after the bear hair sprouted and grew and
covered him up right
down to his plantigrade feet, so that one morning when he caught
a salmon between his teeth and ate it
raw and at first bite
began to bark with joy, just like a bear, his new
mama looked on with pride
at the sight
of this child of hers with his silky hair and his funny snout
and his sharp, sharp eyes
not quite
a bear yet, but coming along nicely, she thought.
"Duet" recollects the day, February 15, 2003, when our son Gabriel lay in small room in a mortuary in Barcelona prior to his cremation. It is a sad poem full of details I'd rather forget. Friends who joined us for that vigil absented themselves for a few hours to join Barcelona's huge protest against Bush's invasion of Iraq, one of many that took place that day all over the world. When they returned, along with our son Rafe, he went in to spend some time with his brother and these events occurred. I remember the protests as the one bright spot in that day, a sure sign that life must continue, but the poem is silent about all that.
Duet
for Rafe
When your brother died
and was laid out in the casket
in a cold room for viewing
prior to incineration
a pleated paper collar fixed
under his chin for reasons
incomprehensible
among so much else that was
incomprehensible that day
you went in to see him and to visit
that's what they called it
and sat down in the gilded
chair that had been placed
next to the glass case
where your brother slept
a fairy-tale prince
waiting to be kissed
but never to be waked.
Someone closed the door
to the room so there would be
privacy for this final meeting
in the flesh. When you came out
the others were waiting
and you told them, I never
could get a word in
edgewise when he was
alive. Still can't.
One morning last September I woke up with the opening lines of "End-of-Life Dactyls and Other Remotenesses" playing in my head. I wrote them down and the rest came quickly, unaided by any conscious prodding other than an obvious concern with the rhythm. I liked it then and I like it now, but I'm afraid to think where such poems come from. I've never sent it out.
End of Life Dactyls and Other Remotenesses
Isn't it even mean elderly elderly
Isn't it even mean old
Isn't it what who can get the next morningtide
Isn't it what can be told
Pigs will be flying in heaven scent afterward
Pigs will fly up in the storm
Pigs will be there when they take you apart they will
Follow you into the worm
This little needle is ready to work for you
This little needle is tart
Punch it in pull it out draw the blue thread of it
Always away from the heart
See how it see how it see it come draw the blood
See the room jump to its feet
When the sky pull its spread over the two of you
See it come spatter the sheet
Lost for the penny now lost for the sound of it
Never unbutton your more
Hope along little one keep to the high of it
Into the ear of the roar
The Unfinished Poem
It is not like seeing a bear loping across your path
ahead of you on the road
in the evening light
its fur rippling over its muscles and blacker than the dark
coming on, as black as licorice
or anthracite
as it finds its opening into the twilit woods and you idly
wonder what errand this moderate
hurry might
serve and whether this particular bear, however black
he might seem, could possibly be
the Norwegian White
Bear King ambling the woods toward the castle
and the princess waiting there, waiting
so they write
to marry a bear and change him back into a man
after sleeping with him (no questions asked
and never catching sight
of his true shape) for three or four nights (just feeling his fur
in the dark, silky and soft and
neither black nor white)
or else that Penobscot boy who got lost in the woods
and was taken in by a family of bears who
loved him despite
his being human, though he wasn't that for long, not
after the bear hair sprouted and grew and
covered him up right
down to his plantigrade feet, so that one morning when he caught
a salmon between his teeth and ate it
raw and at first bite
began to bark with joy, just like a bear, his new
mama looked on with pride
at the sight
of this child of hers with his silky hair and his funny snout
and his sharp, sharp eyes
not quite
a bear yet, but coming along nicely, she thought.
"Duet" recollects the day, February 15, 2003, when our son Gabriel lay in small room in a mortuary in Barcelona prior to his cremation. It is a sad poem full of details I'd rather forget. Friends who joined us for that vigil absented themselves for a few hours to join Barcelona's huge protest against Bush's invasion of Iraq, one of many that took place that day all over the world. When they returned, along with our son Rafe, he went in to spend some time with his brother and these events occurred. I remember the protests as the one bright spot in that day, a sure sign that life must continue, but the poem is silent about all that.
Duet
for Rafe
When your brother died
and was laid out in the casket
in a cold room for viewing
prior to incineration
a pleated paper collar fixed
under his chin for reasons
incomprehensible
among so much else that was
incomprehensible that day
you went in to see him and to visit
that's what they called it
and sat down in the gilded
chair that had been placed
next to the glass case
where your brother slept
a fairy-tale prince
waiting to be kissed
but never to be waked.
Someone closed the door
to the room so there would be
privacy for this final meeting
in the flesh. When you came out
the others were waiting
and you told them, I never
could get a word in
edgewise when he was
alive. Still can't.
One morning last September I woke up with the opening lines of "End-of-Life Dactyls and Other Remotenesses" playing in my head. I wrote them down and the rest came quickly, unaided by any conscious prodding other than an obvious concern with the rhythm. I liked it then and I like it now, but I'm afraid to think where such poems come from. I've never sent it out.
End of Life Dactyls and Other Remotenesses
Isn't it even mean elderly elderly
Isn't it even mean old
Isn't it what who can get the next morningtide
Isn't it what can be told
Pigs will be flying in heaven scent afterward
Pigs will fly up in the storm
Pigs will be there when they take you apart they will
Follow you into the worm
This little needle is ready to work for you
This little needle is tart
Punch it in pull it out draw the blue thread of it
Always away from the heart
See how it see how it see it come draw the blood
See the room jump to its feet
When the sky pull its spread over the two of you
See it come spatter the sheet
Lost for the penny now lost for the sound of it
Never unbutton your more
Hope along little one keep to the high of it
Into the ear of the roar
© 2019 Michele Stepto
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