Less Than Three Miles
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| photo by author |
LESS THAN THREE MILES
I walk it because it’s close—
not even three miles, a distance
that still smells of errands.
Hope Cemetery opens like a file drawer
left ajar: elms indexing the air,
stones alphabetized by frost and lichen.
Her name is smaller than the traffic
running around the rotary.
The date-work is neat, unquestioning.
A sparrow tests the granite with one foot,
decides against it. Accuracy matters:
the way the letters are cut deep enough
to hold yesterday’s rain,
each vowel a thimble.
I stand where the ground has learned
to be patient.
A plastic flag from some other grave
ticks like a metronome.
The city keeps going—
a bus sighs, a truck downshifts—
yet here the scale changes.
Even the wind speaks in footnotes.
What surprises me is not reverence
but familiarity:
the ordinary slope, the municipal care,
the absence of spectacle.
Spontaneity arrives as a smell—
cold iron, leaves bruised into sweetness—
and I am suddenly thinking of kitchens,
of maps folded until they tear.
She is not here, of course.
That’s the lesson the stone repeats
without emphasis.
Still, something has been set right:
the mind steadied by fact,
the heart allowed its small, exact wonder.
I leave a pebble because my hands
need to do something true,
poet to poet. Maybe some poetry will rub off.
Walking home, the neighborhood resumes—
mailboxes, dogs, a kid somewhere close,
practicing trumpet—
and the mystery keeps pace,
quiet as breath,
no farther from me than this short walk,
no closer than the name
holding rain.
----
This pilgrimage to hometown poet Elizabeth Bishop's final resting place happened last summer, but I was prmpted to write about it by the DVerse Poets Pub.
I would love to know what you thought about this piece.
Please consider leaving a comment.
This prompt fell in your lap, Chris, and how wonderful to make a pilgrimage to Elizabeth Bishop's final resting place. I love the description of the cemetery, the way it ‘opens like a file drawer left ajar’ and the ‘stones alphabetized by frost and lichen’. The sparrow is a delightful touch, while the sounds of bus and truck anchor us to the everyday, together with the ‘mailboxes, dogs, a kid somewhere close, practicing trumpet’. I enjoyed this poem.
ReplyDelete"Less than three miles" you take us on this ramble to Bishop's grave, and set a striking rhythm and reflective note of homage, exacting from them all that Bishop would most thrill at, each of her three poetic hallmarks found in sensory detail and emotional breadth. What a pleasure to read and revel in!
ReplyDeleteI especially love these lines:
"I stand where the ground has learned
to be patient"
and
"What surprises me is not reverence
but familiarity:
the ordinary slope, the municipal care"
and
"Still, something has been set right:
the mind steadied by fact,
the heart allowed its small, exact wonder"
and
"the mystery keeps pace,
quiet as breath,
no farther from me than this short walk."
I feel quite certain if Elizabeth Bishop were alive, she would praise your poetry ... tell you it touched her ~~ her mind, soul and heart. It did mine, Chris.
ReplyDeleteSo much I love about this, reading it was a delight and Hope Cemetery a file drawer left ajar...so very good. Gosh there has been some fabulous poetry to this prompt and here is another one. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteYour poem is startingly original...image-packed with surprises in every line. Love it.
ReplyDeleteA lovely tribute to the poet. I loved this line... I stand where the ground has learned to be patient.
ReplyDelete