Poem of the Week

THE POET FADES

(On Meeting Galway Kinnell

Dodge Poetry Festival 2004)

The poet stands,

his thoughts struggle to gather

enjambed, end-stopped together,

caesuraed with Ahs, Ums, silence.

When worshippers undulate

petitioning their god,

his hand curls around one ear,

desiring petition’s repetition…

Later, when gatherers

line to glimpse this poetry deity up close,

his attendants move from one to the next,

penning the names of his followers

on bright yellow sticky notes

adhering them to the books, pamphlets, and other pendants

brought by his disciples to be touched by the pen,

the pen that coined such poignant poems.

Then, when they ask, the poet pretends he hears,

and signs their name, then his.

His frame waxes frail.

Time hunkers down,

and trims the insight lamp low.

A voice from the shadows beckons

“Listen, Kinnell,

dumped alive

and dying into the old sway bed,

a layer of crushed feathers all that there is

between you

and the long shaft of darkness shaped as you,

let go.”

And the poet fades.

Still,

when he reads,

he reads with passion.

** Excerpt of “The Hen Flower” lines 108 – 155 from The Book of Nightmares by Galway Kinnell **