You never cry anymore. The trees don’t make
you weep. The baseball season has almost
gone missing, but you aren’t really concerned.
You can’t go anywhere. There is a world of free
love, grocery stores, off-track betting shops,
and farmers markets. But that world has
slipped into another dimension, like when
you hang a jacket you got as a kid in your
closet and it turns into an old man’s
three-piece suit a half century later.
I am an absentee voter. I am an absentee
drunk. I assault my senses on a daily basis,
but nothing can open up the sky
again for me and you, no one can tell
us we are free to go. We get carry-out.
We get lonely and scared. No one can
open up the past and let it flow right
into the present the way it’s always
done before. Instead, it’s stuck back there
in the good old days. I blow a kiss to
the priests and rabbis, I genuflect to
the babies and bathing beauties. We will
see you soon, I hope, when the trees
remember the names of every fallen leaf.
-- Terence Winch
Two other poems by Terence Winch appear in the journal's Autumn 2022 issue (edited by Jessica Faust). The issue also includes a translation of Friedrich Hölderlin's magnifcent "Bread and Wine," which begins with this stanza:
The city’s asleep; on streets lit by lamplight,
Carriages glide stealthily, with torches ablaze.
Men return from work, reflect on the day’s doings --
Who’s in, who’s out, who’s leading, who’s losing --
Happy to be home; gone are the grapes and flowers
Of the midday market; the craftsmen’s work is done;
But from distant gardens comes the sound of strings;
Perhaps lovers are at play, or a man alone dreams
Of friends in distant places, or his own boyhood. Fresh
Water flows freely and bathes the fragrant flower beds.
In the dimming light of evening, bells ring
And the dutiful watchman calls out the hours.
Now wafts a breeze that touches the crest of the grove --
And look! The shadow of our earth, the moon,
Rises without fanfare; the phantoms of the night come,
The sky full of stars indifferent to human kind,
The astounding glow of night, a stranger among us,
High over mountain peaks, with sad glamour.
brilliance abounds
Posted by: lally | October 08, 2022 at 12:16 PM
Love it... and how it returns to the trees at the end.
Posted by: Jack Skelley | October 08, 2022 at 06:08 PM
". . .every fallen leaf."
Posted by: Beth Tenny | October 09, 2022 at 01:04 PM
Terence Winch beautifully evokes here the world lost to Covid, akin to the one Holderlin evoked.
Quite an apropos pairing of lyrical intensities.
Posted by: David Schloss | October 15, 2022 at 08:48 AM