Family Lines
For Ali Cobby-Eckermann
1
You hear before you see
ghosts scrape along mud paths
supporting abundant life
in natural clay catchments
as Yarra Bend River burns lines
with its wide gown
of ineffable brown.
Early Winter rains
renew and replenish cemeteries
of a thousand burials recorded
by exotic Elms & Moreton Bay
where grey-brained governors locked
up round-the-bend ones
at Yarra Bend
Lunatic Asylum.
You hear before you see
burning questions in claws
of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos hurling raucous screeches
over the blue stone pillar
of life imprisonment’s gate—
fallen woman
falling man
your hearts starve
on stolen bread.
You see before you hear
prodigal lines return
on bent brown rivers
of your genealogy.
2
I am the daughter raised
without a mother
I am the son
without memory of a father
I am lines
without their poet.
My mother never knew her mother
I can’t trace my father’s mother’s mother
or the poet whose lines enter then steal our hearts.
* * *
I am never alone in bush song
where brown rivers burn my muddy tongue.
I have twenty-seven grandmothers
and watch grandfathers grow from wings
of sacred Kingfishers and Rainbow Lorikeets.
Wherever I roam, I have family—
mothering lines for pages
fathering pages for lines—
wherever I flow
I find song.
Anton,
ReplyDeleteThis is just beautiful. The sounds and the images are wonderful. My favorite from the first part is the third stanza (I was going to point out the claws or the raucous screeches or the fallen-falling, but all of it is so good, I can't decide). Then, as the poem gets more internal in the second part, it shows the isolation of one who does't quite belong to the world, and yet who owns the world through song. Also the repetition of You see before you hear and then its reversal in the last stanza of part one is very effective. One place stands out as less specific than others--line 3, abundant life. Maybe naming some of that life would be more at one with the wonderfully specific lines that follow.
Susan
Hi Anton,
ReplyDeleteI like the feel of this poem, but I find the first four stanzas a little vague- and I am having a hard time grounding myself in them.
The poem gets going for me after 2- I like the build up from daughter without mother to son without memory of father to lines without their poet. I really like that. I like " or the poet who's lines enter then steal our hearts". I lose ground again in the second to last stanza.
I like the idea of the last stanza- the idea that one's own creativity can be a form of family- but I have trouble imagining "fathering pages"- unless the narrator was in the pulp and paper industry- or I am missing the metaphor- also maybe the end is really saying wherever I am, I am family- because there is no mother or father to the narrator- the narrator is mother and father to lines or pages- just a thought. I think you are saying something important about the power of creativity as a source of renewal. Thx
Or... maybe at the end the narrator realizes that he is "surrounded" by family wherever he is- I think surrounded might work better because it doesn't narrowly refer to the narrator's family, but can encompass the poem's family as well- which live inside the narrator. I "have family" suggests to me that it would be the narrator's family and really its the poems family- if that makes any sense at all. Just something to think about. Best, Lori
ReplyDeleteI just tried to post again and it didn't seem to work- forgive me if this come up twice-here is what I wanted to add-
ReplyDeleteMaybe in the end the narrator realizes that he is "surrounded" by family - I think that might work better because, in the discovery that he is in fact mother and father of the poem, it doesn't follow that he "has family" wherever he goes- it isn't technically his family ( although he is mother and father), it is the poems family- that live inside of him. So surrounded by family might work better, since it is broad enough to refer to the poem's family, not just the narrator's.
I hope that makes sense and that it is helpful. Best, Lori
Hi Anton,
ReplyDeleteI like the two sections of the poem.
First calling on the "ghosts" of time with some very haunting lines of family, time. I find this stanza particularly haunting:
You hear before you see
burning questions in claws
of Sulphur-Crested Cockatoos hurling
raucous screeches
over the blue stone pillar
of life imprisonment’s gate—
fallen woman
falling man
your hearts starve
on stolen bread.
Hearts starving on stolen bread is very arresting.
In the second section, I like that the "I" appears and is here now and a product of all of the ghosts of section one and a writer. I like that the "I" is taking all of the past haunting into the present and writing.
I don't have any suggestions for changes. I find this poem fascinating and yes, very haunting by recognizing ancestors alive in the present writing.
I don't understand the three stars though and find them distracting because they are making me wonder why they are there and taking up too much of my energy away from the poem. Why did you put them in? Did you leave out part of the poem?
Thank you for sharing this powerful poem.
Hope this helps.
~Suze
I recognised the place names and adored the way you made them come alive - "with its wide gown/
ReplyDeleteof ineffable brown.". I did think the first five lines of the third stanza a tad clunky and quite a mouthful in my minds voice but you redeemed the stanza with the remaining lines.
The internalness of part two is intriguing if not a little too abstract however, the line
"where brown rivers burn my muddy tongue" is joyous.
I really enjoyed reading your poem, thank you for sharing.
Corrina :)