Hi everyone,
I'm going to be a father in three days--my daughter Sasha and son David arrive on Friday by scheduled C-section. Over the past few weeks, I've been working on a series of drafts, all of which contain the word "First" in the title, and all of which constitute some inaugural communication with my kids. There's "Pardon the First," "Wish List the First," "Invitation the First," and so on. I randomly picked the following draft from the lot, and look forward to hearing your thought.
Take care,
Greg
Permission the First
You who come naked as rain may push
for the blood-stained light, may pass feet
first through the oldest gate, and start to process
the mother tongue, in which I can count to ten.
Soon, the full moon waves its flashlight
on patrol. Boys reach down their pants
to fondle pistols. Soon comes the gossip
of salt. Don’t shy now from leaving behind
the inner sea, dark and rippled like bark.
Go ahead and scream your hungers, ills.
You needn’t behave in the silent way
dust erects its empires. Wake us, soil
and soil, storm. Memory is the wet nurse
of time, feeding and caressing. You have no
hour, no blame. So press against the future,
permeable and opaque as a window screen:
you can’t punch your hand through yet.
I have put away the metronome
with its wagging finger. I have locked up
April and give you May, the most permissive.
You are released to become the student
underlining textbooks, the broom pusher
or the mattock--whatever your ultrasonic
heart desires. Forget your bones and muscles
wrapped in a Caucasian flag of surrender.
Just forge with reason as your anvil, nonsense
your hammer, unaware that one dark
breath makes of glass a mirror, unaware
God knows us, stumbling through
doorways, down stairwells we don’t see,
while every stain in the end gets burned away.
Far-off cities rock at anchor. You may
visit every one. The poplars nod assent.
Your dead Uncle Jon says travel, as he himself
could not. Hear the crunch of tires
on gravel, living rooms choked with laughter.
You will not be punished for feeling
heat’s collisions. I have slid my hands inside
my pockets and will make no threats, not before
your forearm dreams a thicket in its crush
of sleep, before curses on the ear like rabbit
punches, complaints about the dollar’s edge--
hatchet sharp. There are those obsessed
with power, those with love. Later,
you’ll discover which you are. You will
come to your senses, like all the rest,
too late, and regret proposals made
in loneliness and haste. For now,
befriend the split-eyed house cats
I myself refuse to trust. Soon you will
partake of platters, garish with beet
salad, purple cabbage, the fried nests
of potato latkes. For now, you are invited
to lurch like a seal, to fan the rumors
of your royal birth. And if you like,
my live one, feel free to call me “Papa.”
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This is a wonderful poem, Greg. Like a good bread full of currants and nuts, so much to chew. Every stanza is loaded with wonderful images and phrases: naked as rain, the moon waving its flashlight, the metronome’s wagging finger, the gossip of salt, heat’s collisions, the ultrasonic heart. I read on with that delicious anticipation of knowing a poet is going to keep giving me choice and chewy bits. The voice is loving and reverent and bemused [one starched moment with “You needn’t behave in the silent way dust erects its empires”] as a father-to-be speaks to his unborn child – evoking the world he himself has (and hasn’t) experienced, allowing by phrasing and incantation, “releasing,” “permitting,” “giving assent,” “inviting” as if a child really waits for permission at all to do or be (just you wait!!)
ReplyDeleteIt’s a poem directed to “you” the child, but more it seems a poem for the father. A sort of stock-taking at the threshold. So he recounts the history of the mother (Caucasian flag etc.) and his own history (Uncle Jon) – the steps and missteps, coming to one’s senses too late. So a comment like, “Memory is the wet nurse of time” seems to belong more to a man who has memories sufficient to nurse time (not the other way around – as I would think). Perhaps the child is impossible to imagine without recalling the life already lived [echoes].
Still a child born under an awning like this (and it does seem like a kind of bright awning thrown over the passage to protect and to commemorate) will know that s/he will be loved -- for who s/he is, “allowed” to make the mistakes and judgments that define his/her own humanity and that of all that comes before his/her birth. The attempt is for a kind of inventory -- expansive – comprehensive.
The last line struck me first as sweet – an acknowledgment of this new name/relationship, an invitation to the baby born to be so aligned. Next it bothered me a little – that this is the final “permission.” [as a “tada”, strikes a less than humble tone] And isn’t this assumed somehow? Then it made me think that the father awaits his naming in order for he himself to become (to be given permission) the father of this child. I guess I still feel ambivalent towards it, as a way to end this poem. I’m brought back to what I said before, once launched, a child doesn’t really wait for or need permission.
I imagine what it will be like for a child to grow up and read this poem – to feel so anticipated. But which one is this directed to? That’s another thing. This is so individual, and yet you’re expecting two children. Have you already planted a seed of rivalry? He wrote it to ME! No he wrote it to ME! [Ha.] Any child or children born to a poet father like you, Greg, is lucky indeed – to be welcomed and celebrated. This is a lovely poem. I can’t wait to read the other "firsts".
Amanda
Ok, in the midst of my evening I have read this poem. As life is now, with so much to read, daily papers, new magazines (Rolling Stone, Men's Health), student journals, final essays and exams, a book of essays on the significance of the Big Lebowski, and then my own writing that is always surrounding me with clouds of deadlines (and sometimes forced inspiration), I come to a poem for a respite, a reflection, a moment that will inspire me to think more metaphorically and symbolically about this temporal experience of physical life on earth. With that in mind, I will point out my first thoughts on reading the poem and then instant workshop points:
ReplyDeleteGood: Solid tone and rhythm. A strong voice establishes itself with good pacing. Poem really gets going by the end, rhythm picks up, starting with "God knows us", right through the end, but then does slow down with all of the vague pronouns (my/yours)...
Greg's very interesting and poignant introduction provides information that would be good in some way in the poem. It's like in any workshop where a person reads a poem and then says something after it, and someone else in the workshop says, "What you said! That should be in there". Where is the great line, "I'm going to be a father in three days"...(with some comment about the planned c-section in more metaphorical terms?)... Since that line is not ther, the poem's title nor text ever really names the speaker of the poem, so that makes the vague pronouns throughout distracting. I know it's part of a sequence of poems under one drafting banner, but the poems do have to live on by themselves without us to explain them. Really like the cats line!
Work: Not hip to the fondling pistols trope in its current context. Since I am a father who has always been hypersensitive about firearms with my son, this figure of speech is too "loaded" without more specification. Then, you get to the teen years and it takes on a whole new meaning. I mean, KISS did "Love Gun" in the 70s. A gun introduced needs to be used, right Amanda?, or is a red herring in poem ok? Also, don't agree with screens being opaque, as one can see through most screens, unless you mean a screen on a stage or something (like Streetcar Named Desire). Burnt or darkly colored class is opaque. Better look it up -- Webster's says "not letting light pass through". I'm always interested in more specificity, so as a teacher I want to know WHAT the "students are underlining in textbooks"... "laughter" about what?
Praise: Have some other note I made but I can't make out, so I'll leave it at that. I enjoyed reading this poem, Greg, and glad to take a poetry break. I think you have a strong voice, achieve a good rhythm, have a strong meditative lyrical quality to your words, and just need some more specificity to get this one sparkling. Hope that's ok? Anyway, later. Best, Hugh
Thanks so much, Hugh, for these insightful remarks. The pistols image certainly is a red herring, and I definitely need to change "opaque." I'll work on the specificity throughout. I truly appreciate your time, and hope to have the chance to reciprocate soon.
ReplyDeleteGreg