The yard seems eerily still this afternoon. Nothing stirs, other than the occasional flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers foraging in the wax myrtle.
They chirp softly to each other as they feed, and their muffled voices make me feel as if I should speak in a whisper.
It’s a perfect afternoon to crawl under a warm blanket, call the cats to join me, and lose myself in a new book.
Elegy: Poems by Raphaela Willington
(unbound CONTENT, 2012)
In the foreword to Elegy, John Briggs begins by saying, “Raphaela Willington died on January 6, 2004, of ovarian cancer. Death became her muse in her last years.” He goes on to describe a woman of admirable strength and a poet of considerable talent.
The first poem begins: “Sometimes you wake / into silence” (“Sometimes You Wake”, pg 20). From there the book proceeds to muffle death’s dirge with birdsong and rustling leaves. The poems’ gardens are vividly alive. Zucchini and paperwhites thrive there, tomatoes and zinnias. Deer, squirrels, and groundhogs roam the pages, and “The sun is today a citadel / falling falling / yet standing” (“This Day”, pg 28).
In Elegy, death isn’t a morbid centerpiece, nor is it draped in mourning. Instead, it is herded into place as simply another visitor in the gardens. When the author finds the skull of a buck, antlers still attached, she says:
“One ear remains intact, as if listening, I imagine,
for the sound of the voice of my father calling us,
mother and me,
in from the dusk of the garden
at the end of a long day.” (“Endgame”, pg 45)
Later, she hears her name in winter’s approach:
“deer feasting on our hearts,
tomatoes crystallized into summer’s rubies
set in circlets of dying vines” (“Growing Seasons”, pg 76)
The foreword says, “A culture plumped with its belief in self-importance and fixated on amassing accomplishment might judge that Raphaela didn’t ‘do’ much with her life.” (pg 12) I say she did much that was remarkable, and I’m particularly grateful to her for writing Elegy. It seems to me as if she peered through the veil that separates life from death and fearlessly recorded what she saw. Then she wrote her observations into beautifully lyrical, meticulously revised poetry.
Last week, my trip included a morning in Elora, Tennessee, where my mother’s father is buried alongside his parents and a handful of other relatives. I never met my maternal grandfather, who died before I was born, and I have few memories of his parents.
My visit was intended to honor Mother’s memory, more than theirs, so I was surprised by how their headstones affected me. I became intensely curious, wandering past name after name. Who were these people? How much of them lives on, in me? My connection to these graves was strengthened by my recent experience reading Elegy, which I had finished the day before our drive to Elora.
Yesterday, I flew home through the southern-most remnants of Hurricane Sandy. The flight was a bit bumpy, though not as rough as I had anticipated. I went to bed early and slept late this morning, then meant to spend much of my day in the yard, which is cluttered with knotweed and wind-torn leaves. But as I knelt in a patch of damp grass, acutely aware of the contrast between the yard’s October-cold ground and a breezy sky full of summer-warm sunshine, I changed plans.
The ocean was restless, tossing sets of foaming waves onto a beach swept flat and clean. I watched as a ship pulled out of the Chesapeake Bay, and I hoped that it was headed north, carrying help to areas devastated by Sandy.
Trying to distract myself from overwhelming images of flooding and destruction, I spent the next half-hour photographing pelicans.
Eventually, my phone chimed an appointment reminder, which I barely heard over the ocean’s tumble and growl.
My route to the appointment carried me past First Landing State Park, so I stopped for a quick glance at the Chesapeake Bay.
(That’s the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel, in the background.)
I only stayed about fifteen minutes, and in that short time clouds swallowed the sun. I assumed these clouds were related to the storm, or to the cold front that fed its monstrous transformation into a super-storm. Either way, I returned to my car with a heavy heart, helplessly small and weak under such a beautiful, terrible sky.
It appears that Hurricane Sandy might delay my return plans, which means I might have a few more days to visit family and chase birds…
The weather turned cold, cloudy, and windy today, just in time for the Jack Daniel’s 2012 World Championship Invitational Barbeque. I enjoyed wandering through the tents and shops with one of my dearest friends, who didn’t mind waiting while I photographed some of the 4-H club’s petting zoo animals and a bluebird foraging in a nearby field.
Our return trip wandered through the center of Fayetteville and along many of the back roads I knew by heart when I was younger.
Rae Spencer 