Monday, October 8, 2012

October, An Elegy by Sue Goyette

October Fairy by Amy Brown


October, An Elegy
By Sue Goyette

The whole month of October
is an elegy, a used bookstore
getting rained on.  This weather
makes me read endings first.  Partings
and farewells, the way we're baffled, startled
when happiness falls.  Let me tell you something about darkness, though,
because there's been enough about light.  But first
about the handwritten poem copied out in the back
of a Rilke translation.  It begins with beloved,
I'm tempted to tell you, or with rest,
and is written in the kind of couplets that are made
for each other, lines with stories of how they first met,
and I'm tempted to say that after I read it, light didn't matter,
nor darkness, that poetry somehow gathers
them both into one word.  O, how often we are baffled,
startled by our own happiness.  I read the poem
and kept its last three unresolved lines:  our
line break hearts.  There is a pause always around the word
heart, the history
of leaving, the small right-angled scars of loss.  Another line break
then into, a space, then the words:  like small trees.  We are made up
of small trees, limbs that reach for each other, forest
of longing, root systems of light, small blossoms of darkness
and there is a poem handwritten after pages of Rilke and, after Rilke,
how can our hearts be anything but small trees.  The book was used.  The lines
unresolved.  It was raining so I sat in the store and read
the ending first.  Here happiness falls, sometimes
the only difference between our
and hearts is a line break after a long elegy.  This is the season that begins
by ending.  The space between light
and darkness is unresolved
as the space between our hearts
and small trees.  Beloved, rest.  It's true.  I read the ending first
but I kept reading it until I got all the way back
to the beginning.
 
From:  "Undone" By Sue Goyette

Support Poets.  Buy Poetry!!!!!

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have lived lines once as this, when by mistake I found the touching of parallel lines as the world sat in utter silence and disbelief, from there, I surfed both the bends in time and space.
XO

Marion said...

Way to handle up, Trav. Line surfing...time/space bending...you really are a poet. I like to read books backwards often. Makes for a really fascinating story. I do the same with poems, so this one really spoke to my crazy ways. xo

PS: Have you read "Dune"?? Just wondering...

Anonymous said...

I have not. Is that the same as the movie Dune?

Marion said...

The movie was made from the book. I'm reading the original trilogy for the first time. It's by Frank Hebert. Amazing read. Check out what Wikipedia says about it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dune_(novel) xo

Kelly said...

I love that picture of the October Fairy!!

Serena said...

What an absolutely stunning piece of poetry!
xo

quid said...

Oh, this poem is phenomenal! And a great pairing with the picture... ML, thanks for introducing me to this poet.

quid

Marion said...

Kelly, she's awesome, no? I love her crazy-looking cats. xo

SJ and Quid, glad you princesses enjoyed the poem. This woman's books are just plain amazing. I have all of her poetry. I discovered her in a book of poetry titled, "Open Field, 30 Contemporary Canadian Poets" which I highly recommend. I love me some Canadians. xoxo

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for the Goyette poem. Loved it.

By the way, Herbert's Dune series is magnificent, but a very intricate read. Once you've read the first, you must read the rest.