Clarinda Harriss: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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April 8, 9, 10: Dear Steve

 

The crows you heard as omens were omens.

Frost smashed your cucumber seedlings.

Watch the pot. It will boil.

 

Your burial day: sunny, then cold dusky dark.

The piper marched in late. We waited

shivering in wind-borne April snow.

 

The drive home: pink trees waggled

like slutty dresses. A girl walked by in jeans

with strings for her thighs to bulge through.

 

At home: our dog knew your ashes

had sat on my lap. She sniffed, then moved

to your side of the couch to mourn.

 

Note: At the grave, a strange woman

had hung around to be alone with you.

You'd laugh at how pissed off I was.

 

You told me  in Ireland "pissed" 

means "drunk."  My darling, I am so pissed.

Waiting for the day and days  to end.

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Clarinda Harriss, professor emerita of English at Towson University and longtime publisher of BrickHouse Books, Inc., is the author, most recently, of The White Rail, Innumerable Moons, and Ash Wedding. 

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   Cemetery in Ballyvaughan, Co. Clare. Ireland, 2018. Photo by T. Winch

 

Comments

[Clarinda harriss]

Thank you terry, Steve thanks you too.

[Matthew Rohrer]

beautiful poem

[Grace Cavalieri]

Oh Clarinda How sassy and classy Death is in your marvelous hands

[Stephen Reichert]

Classic Clarinda - beautifully written.

[Christopher J Mason]

Beautiful poem. I'm so sorry for your loss. The crows at the beginning are very cinematic.

[Reed Hessler]

It’s as if I were there. From home, to there, back home again, from ashes, to Ireland. To where? The mind wanders where the body will not go.

[Reed Hessler]

Epic intimacy.

[Eileen]

Sad and beautiful. Loved this poem.

[Pat Alt]

Thanks for sharing this with us, Clarinda! You are amazing...

[Lorraine Whittlesey]

Oh, Dear One, how important it was, for both of you to know and love each other.

How lucky I was to know him through your generosity.

Love,
Lorraine

[Gerald Fleming]

Sending this to a friend who's in a similar situation.

[Dr. Earle Hitchner]

"Note: At the grave, a strange woman / had hung around to be alone with you."

There's a whole other poem waiting to be teased from those two lines.

I love the way Clarina's off-handedness (can there ever truly be "off-handedness" in any poem as adroitly constructed as this one?) makes us think of deeper, swirling recesses of fugitive emotion and parallel loss.

"You'd laugh at how pissed off I was."

This is a real relationship, a balance of blues and bouyancy.

Brava, Clarinda!

[Terence Winch]

You're right, Earle. There might even be a novel lurking
in this poem. And it doesn't even have to be written. Just felt.

[Rachel]

Thank you. It took me away for a moment.