Deck the Halls 8: parents

Maryann Corbett · #1 12-12-2008, 07:55 PM

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Reading Aloud To The Corpses Of My Parents

The speed of light slows to a crawl—.
It falters—. Then it grabs a hold
of wheelchair chrome, of wedding gold—.
They’re barely burnished. That is all
the light I have to read by.

Half filled glasses in their hands
are tipping—almost spilling. Lapse
and loss have given birth to gaps
I need to fill. My voice expands
the silence it is freed by.

“Your father wants to hear you read—
from your own book.” So I brewed tea.
And gladly silenced the tv.
Their eyes closed almost instantly
the moment I’d begun.

Yet if I stop, they soon protest,
they’re wide awake with loving smiles—
a Pharaoh and his Queen beguiled
by prospects of eternal rest:
“Just read us chapter one.”

It can’t be true my book’s that boring.
Her dropped jaw. His tilted head.
They cannot possibly be dead,
I tell myself, I hear them snoring.
Such peace, I can’t deny them.

The force of breath descends to drift—.
It fades—. Then steadies to a wheeze.
And in that all but failing breeze
two sails too briefly sigh, and lift
a voice to lullaby them.

(Massapequa, Long Island—2008)

. .

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Rose Kelleher · #2 12-12-2008, 08:33 PM

Wow.

Mary Meriam · #3 12-12-2008, 10:42 PM

Major chills, of course. My fave so far.

Anne Bryant-Hamon · #4 12-13-2008, 12:15 AM

I don't recall ever having read this before. It is certainly unusual. It is always hard for me to relate personally to poems about parents.

Anne

Jim Hayes · #5 12-13-2008, 04:29 AM

I can intuit who this is by, although neither visceral, avant-garde, nor giving a nod towards the maddeningly solid Deep -End, nonetheless my perception is sufficiently warped towards the positive to acknowledge that this is a truly good poem.

Another great choice, and although I am much taken by 'Q'
this, so far, gets my number 1.

Tim Murphy · #6 12-13-2008, 05:20 AM

Yes, this edges Q in my book, too. One of our best of 2008. Fascinating slant on the child/parent theme, and I remember how hard the author worked on the final stanza to strike exactly the right note. Very well done.

Rhina P. Espaillat · #7 12-13-2008, 07:06 AM

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This gorgeous attempt to reconstruct the past--the lives of parents--from photographs is something I've struggled with and written about, but have seldom seen done so well.

Everything is here: the humor of parents dealing with the highly verbal young, the disappointment of the young author over his parents' snoring through his reading, the touching good intentions and affection on both sides, the speaker's attention to small details in the photograph and in the recollection. The light reflected from wedding band and wheelchair is "all the light" he has by which to read the past: that's powerful.

The poem unfolds like a movie, stanza by stanza, and those stanzas are beautiful with their unexpected short end lines rhyming at a distance. I can't find a thing to pick on, and am eager to see what others find.

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Maryann Corbett · #8 12-13-2008, 07:49 AM

My warm feelings for this poem stem from a reading somewhat different from Rhina's. I read this N. as middle aged, reading to very elderly parents, and I've had the same experience of watching a parent nod off, never knowing if I should keep reading or not. The lapse and loss in the parent's life, all coming into sudden focus. The silence that frees--or does it? The peace, although the N. is not at peace but in tension. They all touch me, almost too nearly.

Jim Hayes · #9 12-13-2008, 07:59 AM

Maryann I read this as you do.

amacrae · #10 12-13-2008, 09:31 AM

My favorite so far, I think. The tinge of humour gives the reader some much-needed breathing room. I love it.

Austin