"Calling Hours"

[AuntShecky]

Calling Hours

To enter winter’s sleep you'd drawn July –
the evening was too hot to throw a wake.
Though some were wearing shorts while stopping by,
at least they showed, not just for custom’s sake.

Quick checks of the guest-book said who was who:
the former kids who'd grown up on the block.
Not the sight of what death had done to you --
but their aged faces -- gave the greater shock.

The “better circumstances” all had wished –
let’s face it – when had such events appeared?
Across mattes of memory bright hues swished
to dim the bolder strokes we all had feared.

Those friends and mostly you had brought unease
back when one too young to recognize the game
took to heart hard words only meant to tease.
This final insult now ascribes no blame.

Never, nowhere had there been a falling out.
Not once the sibling ties decided to unbind,
yet even obscure strangers bear more clout.
I knew as little of your kids as you did mine.

“I should call her,” you might've said once or twice.
“ Wonder how my brother is,” I might've thought.
We ignore the piles of days, against advice,
until we see the mess the years have brought.

Next morn atop the tiny church’s roof,
a grackle broke the solemnity with his call.
With his comic commentary he stayed aloof,
and far above the throng he mocked us all.

The bird I think was sent there to remind
me with each tension-breaking crack
that ties, even loosened ones, can bind.
I grieve most those lost hours. Call them back!

[PrinceMyshkin]

Marvellous how you can go from the relatively light-hearted to the deep and solemn:


Never, nowhere had there been a falling out.
Not once the sibling ties decided to unbind,
yet even obscure strangers bear more clout.
I knew as little of your kids as you did mine.

“I should call her,” you might've said once or twice.
“ Wonder how my brother is,” I might've thought.
We ignore the piles of days, against advice,
until we see the mess the years have brought.


And most especially, most touchingly, this:


The bird I think was sent there to remind
me with each tension-breaking crack
that ties, even-loosened ones, can bind.
I grieve most those lost hours. Call them back!

How gracefully you express what might in other hands be lugubrious!

[firefangled]

Calling Hours

To enter winter’s sleep you'd drawn July –
the evening was too hot to throw a wake.
Though some were wearing shorts while stopping by,
at least they showed, not just for custom’s sake.

A quick check of the guest-book said who was who:
the former kids who'd grown up on the block.
Not the sight of what death had done to you --
but their aged faces -- gave the greater shock.

The “better circumstances” all had wished –
let’s face it – when had such events appeared?
Across mattes of memory bright hues swished
to dim the bolder strokes we all had feared.

Those friends and mostly you had brought unease
back when one too young to recognize the game
took to heart hard words only meant to tease.
This final insult now ascribes no blame.

Never, nowhere had there been a falling out.
Not once the sibling ties decided to unbind,
yet even obscure strangers bear more clout.
I knew as little of your kids as you did mine.

“I should call her,” you might've said once or twice.
“ Wonder how my brother is,” I might've thought.
We ignore the piles of days, against advice,
until we see the mess the years have brought.

Next morn atop the tiny church’s roof,
a grackle broke the solemnity with his call.
With his comic commentary he stayed aloof,
and far above the throng he mocked us all.

The bird I think was sent there to remind
me with each tension-breaking crack
that ties, even-loosened ones, can bind.
I grieve most those lost hours. Call them back!

What a surprise to discover the title in the last three words. Very powerful!

This is written so straightforward, nothing is forced (except, if you don't mind a suggestion, I would replace "said" with an Em dash to maintain the scan set up in the other stanza first lines.)

Although the structure was much different, this is reminiscent of Frost's "A Servant to Servants" and "Home Burial" in its matter-of-fact style.

Very well done. I enjoyed reading this.

I just was reading this again and noticed how perfect your end rhymes are for each other. Once I read the poem a couple times, it seems coded in them read in pairs.

[ampoule]

With tears in my eyes and a lump in my throat it's hard to get out that I loved this.

[AuntShecky]

Thank you, Prince, Firefangled, and Ampoule. It took me eight months to write this, because, among the obvious reasons, I usually avoid writing overtly "personal" verses. I want to subscribe to Eliot's dicta expressed in his essay, "Tradition and
Individual Talent." Incidentally, did you know that our usual
assumption that the "I" in a poem and the poet himself/herself
is a relatively new convention? It is my understanding that what we have come to know as "personal poetry" didn't really arise
until the damn of the Romantic Poets in the early 19th c.

But I digress. Thanks again. I'm glad you enjoyed this piece.

Auntie

[AuntShecky]

This is written so straightforward, nothing is forced (except, if you don't mind a suggestion, I would replace "said" with an Em dash to maintain the scan set up in the other stanza first lines.)




You are absolutely right. I think I mentioned before how prosody has always been hard for me, and actually got me booted from another site. Anyway, I tried to edit the line in question, and began it with a spondee instead of an
iamb so at least there is still the proper number of feet.

[PrinceMyshkin]

You are absolutely right. I think I mentioned before how prosody has always been hard for me, and actually got me booted from another site. Anyway, I tried to edit the line in question, and began it with a spondee instead of an
iamb so at least there is still the proper number of feet.

Personally, I salute the feet that brought you here.

[Virgil]

Well done Auntie. It reds well. :)

[ampoule]

Personally, I salute the feet that brought you here.


I personally second that!