I'm getting a very late start on poem three. The idea for this poem came from Kate Clanchy's workshop. The exercise is to write a letter to someone you have lost. The "loss" can be to death, but also distance, a misunderstanding, accident, neglect, etc. If you need a little inspiration, The Guardian offers numerous poetry workshops, by acclaimed poets, on its site. Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat, "that submlimely cool and marvelously short monologue of love and loss", is the guide text for this poem.
Dear William
Danna
Dear William,
It's close to midnight, the beginning of April,
and the weather here in Utah hasn't made up its mind yet.
I'm listening to Phoenix from Martina Topley-Bird's CD,
The Blue God , and if you and I had ever met, you'd know
being consumed then emerging renewed, is my kind of thing.
I'm writing you to introduce myself and let you know I watch
over the tree planted for you in Veteran's Park,
and also to apologize that I didn't do more to save
your original tree, planted in 1921 to honor the war dead,
that the City cut down to make way for progress.
It snowed the day they cut down your tree.
I was at work when the workmen mulched the branches
and carried off the wood. They stacked two lengths of trunk
in the adjacent parking lot. I had already said goodbye, twisted
the embedded wire from the crook of the tree's neck,
shot a roll of film as if the tree were you,
and we were at the station, posing before a train,
smiling for the camera.
I drove in and out of the parking lot, the next few days,
checking to see if the trunk, if you, were still there.
I'd sit in the car, the lights illuminating the
snowcovered trunk. Finally, I got out of the car
and sat on the trunk, patting the bark.
I tore two branches from the trunk. One is on my studio altar.
The other is planted in the flower bed on the west side of my house,
and although it's apparent it's not ever going to bud,
I can't bring myself to take it from the soil.
All I really know of you is from my father's stories, but like me,
he never knew you, so they're secondhand memories
told to him by his own father, James Archie,
who said that you came to his bedroom the night you died
on that troop train in France, a sliver of steel
driven through your throat on impact,
and stood at the foot of the bed, and said nothing.
I keep old photographs of you on my studio altar.
Sometimes I hear footsteps upstairs when no one
but me is home and wonder if it's you. I have a photo
of you unsmiling in your suitcoat, with your mother
and father, four sisters and three brothers.
A handful of photos of you on the farm
standing with your horses, a careless dark lock
flung over your forehead, your dog, Shep,
nuzzling your leg. I study the stiff poses
of you in your uniform, looking for myself.
In the photographs of you with Meldon,
your wife of one month before you reported for duty,
your eyes are mischievious and young. How could you know
your would be lost in little more than three months.
Or did you? You gave your favorite gun to my grandfather,
along with the words that you didn't think you'd need it.
They said you were the best of the Leighton men,
the hope of the family, and that when you died,
you took thier dreams with you.
What were their dreams, William?
A psychic told me that an ancestor wanted something from me,
and I couldn't uncover who, until you came in a dream
the morning of your birthday. Of course I didn't know
it was your birthday until I told my father as he cut
his pampas grass, that I had dreamed of you, and with his diamond
sharp memory told me so.
What is it that you want William? I really want to know.
With love,
Danna
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