Poets take us to last places

April 16, 2008 in Life is a Verb

Poetry is nearer to vital truth than history. -Plato

The smallest of gestures, the symbolic connection to last places, the pilgrimages to sites of pain and loss. It is an urge, a yearning, a need I believe we all know. This one broke my heart. This one made me quiet. This one.

Thanks, Alice, for sending it, and to the poet, of course, for voicing it.

At Reid Hartley’s Junkyard

To enter we find the gap
between barbed wire and briars,
pass the German Shepherd chained
to an axle, cross the ditch
of oil black as a tar pit,
my aunt compelled to come here
on a Sunday after church,
asking me when her husband
refused to search this island
reefed with past catastrophes.
We make our way to the heart
of the junkyard, cling of rust
and beggarlice on our clothes,
bumpers hot as a skillet
as we squeeze between car husks
to find in this forever
stilled traffic one Ford pickup,
tires stripped, radio yanked out,
driver’s door open. My aunt
gets in, stares through glass her son
looked through the last time he knew
the world, as though believing
like others who come here she
might see something to carry
from this wreckage, as I will
when I look past my aunt’s ruined
Sunday dress, torn stockings, find
her right foot pressed to the brake.

–Ron Rash, from his book, Raising the Dead

[images from this man’s beautiful flickr stream]

About Patti Digh

Patti Digh is an author, speaker, and educator who builds learning communities and gets to the heart of difficult topics. Her work over the last three decades has focused on diversity, inclusion, social justice, and living and working mindfully. She has developed diversity strategies and educational programming for major nonprofit and corporate organizations and has been a featured speaker at many national and international conferences.

4 comments to " Poets take us to last places "


Frivolitea

April 16, 2008 AT 7:31AM

I love Ron Rash’s novels and short stories but have never read his poetry. Thanks for sharing this one with us.

Betsy

April 16, 2008 AT 11:30AM

I don’t remember ever having such a strong response to a poem. On the bookshelf in our bedroom, my husband has the wristwatch with a broken band and the pair of reading glasses that were recovered from the auto accident that took his father’s life. Each time we pass the place the accident occurred, we quietly remember what a wonderful husband and father passed on that piece of Earth. Thanks for posting it.

Jeannie

April 16, 2008 AT 7:47PM

I know him (Ron Rash)! And by “know” I mean he graduated from Clemson, taught here for a little bit, wrote the novel, One Foot in Eden, dedicated it to my favorite English professor (Bill Koon), and came to speak at one of my classes, where I asked him to sign my copy of his book and walked away like a starstruck 22 year old…

Did I mention that I know him!

Gail Livi

June 10, 2012 AT 7:38PM

Ron Rash takes my breath away. His work makes me want to be a poet, a novelist a short story writer. I’ve heard him give readings several times, and last year he was on faculty at Wildacres in NC. I wasn’t in his class exactly, but I was near enough to touch the ragged edges of his cutoffs, though I didn’t of course. He even came up to me after my reading and said he liked my stuff. Swoon. This poem Patti assigned is typical of his use of irony, his exquisite word choices, his seeing the extraordinary in the everyday world of Appalachia. I especially was struck by the strong image of his aunt’s “right foot pressed to the brake.” With that one line, Rash shows the love of the mother for her son. If only, she is thinking, he had pressed the brake. If only she could have pressed it for him. Also liked the lines ” island reefed with past catastrophes” and “the heart of the junkyard” and “car husks” and the words expressing the hope of his aunt that she “might see something to carry away from this wreckage.” He conveys her courage and yearning for her last son. I wonder if I could have done that?