IN POETRY
Eastering
by Jay Parini
Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, biographer, and critic who teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. His six books of poetry include New and Collected Poems, 1975-2015 and The Art of Subtraction, and his eight novels include Benjamin’s Crossing, The Apprentice Lover, The Passages of H. M., and The Last Station, the latter of which was made into an Academy Award-nominated film and translated into over thirty languages. He is a biographer of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, Jesus, and Gore Vidal, and his nonfiction works include The Art of Teaching and Why Poetry Matters. He has also written a life of Jesus and his forthcoming book, The Way of Jesus: Living an Ethical and Spiritual Life, is due in 2018. www.jayparini.com
Jay Parini is a poet, novelist, biographer, and critic who teaches at Middlebury College in Vermont. His six books of poetry include New and Collected Poems, 1975-2015 and The Art of Subtraction, and his eight novels include Benjamin’s Crossing, The Apprentice Lover, The Passages of H. M., and The Last Station, the latter of which was made into an Academy Award-nominated film and translated into over thirty languages. He is a biographer of John Steinbeck, Robert Frost, William Faulkner, Jesus, and Gore Vidal, and his nonfiction works include The Art of Teaching and Why Poetry Matters. He has also written a life of Jesus and his forthcoming book, The Way of Jesus: Living an Ethical and Spiritual Life, is due in 2018. www.jayparini.com
Some wrap themselves in flash of words,
and even blow them up and gladly
just because they think they really see it,
such a happy light beyond this fell,
this dampening of light, this iron tunnel
we go down go down.
I don’t know much about the life-
to-come
that’s here or maybe there,
somewhere in fable, furlongs down
a road I dare not put a foot on carelessly
without my Will to Power.
Today I’m thinking of the countless
seeds the wind once planted
in the falling season when the world
went down in flames
in foil in fury and the damp soil
sucked and sobbed and swallowed.
And I’m thinking of the corpses in the field.
I’m thinking of all mothers, fathers, friends
gone down, ploughed under,
irrigated, crystalized, dissolved.
I’m thinking of my own pale skin, loose cells
that crumble into flakes, this dandruff self.
O spring, I love you.
Resurrection of the body now,
corporeal and sun-grilled, brilliant
morning when the tomb grows empty
of our Lord, his body-rags unbound,
his blaze of yes and yes again.
And me, this morning, just beyond the hill
with brightness underneath my skin
and the thought that children everywhere,
in far-flung frenzies of compacted joy
with this same sun, this shining
that is theirs as well as mine,
with everyone a part of what will fly.
It’s all about this rising,
all about this rinsing in the dew, this dawn;
it’s all about the one bright thing
we find and fabulous unfurl,
this morning gladness at the brink again.
and even blow them up and gladly
just because they think they really see it,
such a happy light beyond this fell,
this dampening of light, this iron tunnel
we go down go down.
I don’t know much about the life-
to-come
that’s here or maybe there,
somewhere in fable, furlongs down
a road I dare not put a foot on carelessly
without my Will to Power.
Today I’m thinking of the countless
seeds the wind once planted
in the falling season when the world
went down in flames
in foil in fury and the damp soil
sucked and sobbed and swallowed.
And I’m thinking of the corpses in the field.
I’m thinking of all mothers, fathers, friends
gone down, ploughed under,
irrigated, crystalized, dissolved.
I’m thinking of my own pale skin, loose cells
that crumble into flakes, this dandruff self.
O spring, I love you.
Resurrection of the body now,
corporeal and sun-grilled, brilliant
morning when the tomb grows empty
of our Lord, his body-rags unbound,
his blaze of yes and yes again.
And me, this morning, just beyond the hill
with brightness underneath my skin
and the thought that children everywhere,
in far-flung frenzies of compacted joy
with this same sun, this shining
that is theirs as well as mine,
with everyone a part of what will fly.
It’s all about this rising,
all about this rinsing in the dew, this dawn;
it’s all about the one bright thing
we find and fabulous unfurl,
this morning gladness at the brink again.