Poem in the Key of E
Some trees keep their color and shape
even beyond the time that we have ceased
to dream. They tease us into faith.
This one I approach from a distance.
Its leaves, like tiny flags of grace,
beckon to me. It is November, and the rain
has pelted us, sweeping masses
of yellow to the sodden earth.
But these leaves stay, and the tree,
bright orange against the now blue
sky, stands against the growing dark.
Some days I am afraid to come,
fearing that a mean and fickle God
will flip the table, leaving me nothing
but a tangle of dark and dirty branches.
The neighbors think I’m weird.
“For Christ sake,” the plumber says.
“It’s just a fucking tree.” Maybe.
I thought that once myself. But now
if I close my eyes hard in the night,
the color comes and the room
slides away. I float upward in this
orange, this strange treeness.
My body is inside, looking out.
Anthony S. Abbott, from The Angel Dialogues, Lorimer Press, 2014
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Poetry, on some level, is about saving things. . . . Things die; poetry retrieves them.
Tony Abbott graced my life during the few years I knew and worked with him. He was president of the NC Poetry Society while I served on the Board, he was mentor in the Gilbert-Chappell program for students, and he was an inspiring colleague and friend. I sat in awe: Davidson professor, poet and novelist, literary leader. But Tony didn’t want our awe. He was a seeker for meaning in this tangled, sometimes messy human journey and he simply invited fellow travelers.
Perhaps empathy and humility spring from the same root. If one has suffered deeply, one cares for and feels deeply the suffering of others; if one has experienced the frailties and missteps to which none of us are immune, one sets aside pride and judgement and stoops to lift the burden of one’s fellows. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
Tony, with his vast gifts and achievements, embodied empathy and humility. My life is richer for having shared it with him. Now his voice we carry within ourselves.
. . . . . . .
Going Home:
a poem in memory of those North Carolina writers who have gone before us
– Weymouth Center, July, 2009
Late afternoon. I lie in the long grass and wait
for words. The still white clouds mock me. Then,
unexpectedly, the sound of music. I sit up. From
an open window upstairs, the clear sounds
of Dvorak. I know these notes like I
know the timbers of my own soul. Yes.
The English horn sings the theme, and sings it
yet again, with the bass clarinet. And then
the strings enter, like a prayer. Take me home,
Lord, take me home. Now the clarinets,
and the horns like faith answer. Then the strings
whisper softly, yes, and again, yes.
I see Graham Jackson, tears running down his black
cheeks, Graham Jackson, in full dress uniform, playing
“Goin’ Home” for his beloved Franklin Roosevelt, and then
the farmers, young and old, black and white, all
of them poor, who loved the only man they had
ever known as President of the United States, hundreds
standing on the hills of Georgia and the Carolinas
watching the train go by with the body of their lost
leader, watching the train take him home. “Goin’ home”
say the English horns again, and then the clarinet returns.
Here I am, listening, images surfacing – the trim brick walks
of my beloved town, the green hills to the west, rising
and falling like the strings, the waves on the outer
banks crashing like the cymbals, then sliding back
like the clarinets. I see the faces of my friends, I hear
the voices of the poets who have gone before, their words
rising again. Dark skinned and light, old and young, male
and female, children of the valleys and the mountains,
children of the coast and the Piedmont. I am here, they say,
I have made the path for you, and I am still here, my words
as true as the rock face of Cold Mountain.
The music soars and for a moment there is light. The whole
orchestra together in hope. then the English horn alone,
mournful, and the strings so soft, almost a whisper.
The strings carry our love over the hills to the sea,
the horns offer it to the sky, and the strings set it aloft.
It is done. They have gone home, and who and what
they are we carry within ourselves. The evening comes.
I rise from the grass and walk toward the open window.
Anthony S. Abbott, from If Words Could Save Us, Lorimer Press, 2011
. . . . . . .
Poetry, on some level, is about saving things. Even a poem so simple as “Growing Up” in A Small Thing is about saving the wonder of the child in an adult world that conspires to destroy it. Maxine Kumin uses the term ‘Retrieval System’ in one of her great poems. Poetry is a retrieval system. Things die; poetry retrieves them.
from Anthony S. Abbott – In His Own Words
Tony Abbott’s publications at Lorimer Press
Biography and induction into the North Carolina Literary Hall of Fame
The scriptural quotation above is I Corinthians 12:26, New Revised Standard Version
Sam Ragan Poetry Festival of the North Carolina Poetry Society — March 22, 2015
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V E R S E ❦ I M A G E 