Michael Whelan: Pick of the Week [ed. Terence Winch]

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Dermot Healy at the Phillips

 

For the last half hour Healy’s been gone—

he’s digging up the potatoes he sees

in Rothko’s hazy fields of color, staring at them

from his bench, alone in their chapel at the Phillips.

Three days ago he turned a corner as we walked DC.

Helen and I found him in a tiny Arabic library that caught

his eye on N Street. So thrilled with the place,

he’s gone back each day to meander in obscure conversation

 

with scholars there about the first sounds

that made language, hints of them secreted still, he says,

on N Street in frail mystery-embedded manuscripts

that took his odd eye and confirmed what he holds

 

as his only faith: that every word is a

living entity with a soul of its own

that longs and morphs and heaves in its letters

sideways and forward chanting its history

in its agony of thanksgiving for living.

 

Healy has moved now from

Rothko’s potato chapel to a minuscule Klee

intricate in light blue lines. He’s traveling

inside its mysteries, multifarious in minutiae.

 

“Will we go home now for the tea?” he nudges.

In the short time of his stay, we’ve shaped a ritual

of tea round the Irish bread he found at the Dupont

Farmers Market. He cuts it thick and toasts it for us.

 

Then slathers it with butter and closes his eyes

in a way that puts the tea and toast

in league with the mysteries

of Rothko and of Klee.

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A set of poems by Michael Whelan, including “Dermot Healy at the Phillips,” on the late Irish poet and novelist, appeared in Éirways magazine.  Whelan’s spiritual memoir After God, published in 2014, is a poetic story of a lifelong lovers’ quarrel with God.  § Whelan won first prize in the juried Leitrim Guardian 2012 Literary Awards. His poems have appeared in The Wallace Stevens Journal, The Innisfree Poetry Journal, The Coachella Review, The Healing Muse, and The Little Patuxent Review.  His prose work has been published in the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and online on the Irish Central site. [For information on Dermot Healy, click here.]

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    Rothko paintings at The Phillips Collection, Washington, DC

Comments

[Bill Nevins]

Stunningly deep diving poetry. I know I will be re reading this poem myself and reading it out to friends for many moons to come. And making plans to visit the Phillips Collection when next in DC this coming May, a copy of Healy's poetry in hand.
Thanks, Michael and Terence!

[Anne Harding Woodworth]

". . . every word is a
living entity with a soul of its own."

Thank you, Michael Whelan, for all the souls you put into this poem.

[Beth J.]

Like the Phillips, a poem to revisit again and again in the gift of silence.

[Terence Winch]

Bill---thanks for the comment.

[lally]

wonderful poem, literally

[Jack Skelley]

Very lovely. Thanks Michael and Terence !

[Susan Francis Campbell]

Wonderful poem.

[David Lehman]

". . .its mysteries, multifarious in minutiae." Fascinating poem juxtaposed with the pertfect Rothko. Thank you, Michael -- and Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Jack---thanks for stopping by.

[Terence Winch]

David: thanks for the comment.

[clarinda]

I love poems that make me hungry. In this case, not only for another visit to the Philips but also for some of my very own Irish soda bread. Yes!

BTW the only time I semi-seriously thought about stealing a painting was in the Philipps, in the 1960s, when I realized a marvelous little Odilon Redon would fit into my big pocketbook. Rothkos can't elicit such fleeting dreams of grand theft. But I often share the notion so well embodied in this poem of somehow getting inside a painting and living there.

Thanks, all of you.
clarinda

[Maria]

I kind of see that all we are art, history, language, daily living is both polluting and nourishing and that in our search for meaning we are purified and tainted by schema: somehow Klee is showing the schema as boundary of our rising light within.

[Robert McDowell]

This is lovely, echoing Yeats on old friendships and soul-sharing. I remember Dermot from a long ago Festival week in Donegal organized by a fine Irish poet, Noelle Vial, who ended her life in her 40s, far too soon. Thanks for the poem, Terence.

[Terence Winch]

Robert: Thanks for that comment.

[Darcie Kortan]

A lovely, intimate view of legend Healy through his brilliant friend's eyes. My favorite: "that longs and morphs and heaves in its letters."

[Gerry Whelan]

Another stunning journey inside in this case into a writer I did not know except through the author who is brilliant, a poet extraordinaire and I am proud to say,. my big brother!

[Connie Whelan]

Only you Michael could put Rothko; an Arabic library; together with spuds and soda bread slathered in butter in a poem. But then IT IS Dermot Healy you’re writing about. This is a wonderful tribute to an artist who checked out too soon. I wish you’d been able to visit the Dermot Healy Exhibition we staged as part of the Cootehill Arts Festival in August 2018, together with the World Premier of Pat McCabe’s madcap ‘Bring me the Head of Dermot Healy’, performed by local drama group Aisteoiri Muinchille. And the launch by Peter Fallon of Gallery Press of ‘Collected Poems’ of Dermot Healy., I know you would have enjoyed them very much. Take care and hopefully we’ll see you back in Ireland in the not too distant future. V b r Connie

[Ina de Quate]

Beautiful Michael!
If Rothko could have read this, he would have been speechless..
Your proud neighbor Ina de Quate

[roger cooke]

"as his only faith: that every word is a living entity with a soul of its own"
Indeed, in 76 years I have never herd the word "slather" but I knew exactly what it means.

[M. Owen]

So Love the microscope on life and art in this!!

[Michael Whelan]

Thank you, Connie, for recounting all those Cavan celebrations of Healy's work. Your Cootehill arts community has provided a such creative venue.

Michael

[Gail Soltysik]

Congratulations on another magical song, Michael. I feel a stream of colors and brisk aromas. You manage to bring so many thoughts and feelings with each and every word -- with each and every work. So special. Thank you.

[M. P. Jennings]

"meander in obscure conversation" ...
Such successful words. Well done, Michael!
Madelyn

[Susan Campbell]

Good one, Michael!