poem: Written for a Living Poet 3: walking with an under-appreciated custodian of history

The ground in the Alleghenies has been tortured; twisted

into metamorphic forms after years of sedimentation, undulated

just so for invasion by sylvan and then bipedal habitants. And you.

I picture you, standing in some forgotten field, an old red oak in

its corner, turning a handful of soil in studied hands, eyes following

old rock walls and behind-left detritus of gone-by days. Dig down,

find the story in the makeshift junkyard; old brown Clorox bottles

and cobalt blue Vicks jars. The innards of a cultivator and someone's

once-precious cherry tree. And you will tell us, like a seasoned

detective at the scene of the crime, what our less-knowing eyes have

missed. You will recount the story, moving backwards in time, tracing

the footsteps of ancestors, seeing refreshed through eyes now bleary

with age, and you will retrace footfalls and deeds. If you look over

there, you will find the path to the swimming hole, the ones where she

snuck out at night for secret trysts with a candle, a pencil, and her diary.

The wounds on this stately beech were when Billy was conscripted

for 'Nam; and he came here to rage out his prescient fear, the journey

to Hell from which no recognizeable part living or dead returned;

this unassuming piece of red shale was a headstone for a child, the

last stillborn, the girl whose mother waited 15 years for, the one whose

death broke her mother's heart and she never again slept with her

husband because she blamed him and his drinking and over there, in

the hidden vault under the fading wall, a wall as intrepid as Frost's;

you will find the stashed whiskey bottles that never made it into the

regular trash because she also was a clandestine drinker after that.

And most of all, you will not just make us see their actions, but your

revisiting makes us know their faces, too, and reflect on something

eternal in the lives of each one of us, because as you would point out,

we are nothing without our landscape and the American landscape is

that of the forgotten tenant farmer. You drop the soil onto the ground

as if in ceremony, and return slowly to the over-sensitizing world of

constant information overload, an analog soul restructuring to make

some sense of the digital infiltration of groundwater, trees, simpler lives.

for kortas, with admiration

Author's Note

too often we wait too long to tell others how their work affects us.
this series of part of my own limited attempt to give some back.

Reviews

[Vesa Lee]

"And most of all, you will not just make us see their actions, but your
revisiting makes us know their faces, too, and reflect on something
eternal in the lives of each one of us,"
^
The mark of an expert master of story.
A brilliant and fitting tribute for a poet truly in a league all his own...
(It's remarkable how you can so effortlessly cut to the marrow of a poet's soul and capture intelligently what you find there - I can't wait to read more form you in this vein.)

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you, Vesa, for the kind and insightful review. I agree that this poet is a masterful story-teller. As for your observation of my style yes, I do believe I search for essential questions at the heart of things. I do not always hit my mark but that is another question entirely.

thank you so much for th visit.. I always learn so much from your reviews.

[Anand Sehgal]

And you will tell us, like a seasoned

detective at the scene of the crime, what our less-knowing eyes have

missed.

really you have showed many things :)

I had an awesome journey. loved the write :)
************************************************************************************************************************************************

[Marie Anzalone]

Thank you very much, Anand! Glad you enjoyed it :-)

[Emily B]

brilliant, the poem and the poet . . . amazing how i know who the honoree is before i get to the label

kortas is an amazing storyteller

[Marie Anzalone]

one-of-a-kind poet, who deserves so much more recognition. I hope I am not the only person ever to have written something for him.