The Pardon

by Richard Wilbur

My dog lay dead five days without a grave
In the thick of summer, hid in a clump of pine
And a jungle of grass and honeysuckle-vine.
I who had loved him while he kept alive

Went only close enough to where he was
To sniff the heavy honeysuckle-smell
Twined with another odour heavier still
And hear the flies' intolerable buzz.

Well, I was ten and very much afraid.
In my kind world the dead were out of range
And I could not forgive the sad or strange
In beast or man. My father took the spade

And buried him. Last night I saw the grass
Slowly divide (it was the same scene
But now it glowed a fierce and mortal green)
And saw the dog emerging. I confess

I felt afraid again, but still he came
In the carnal sun, clothed in a hymn of flies,
And death was breeding in his lively eyes.
I started in to cry and call his name,

asking forgiveness of his tongueless head.
...I dreamt the past was never past redeeming:
But whether this was false or honest dreaming
I beg death's pardon now. And mourn the dead.

Richard Wilbur's The Pardon really affected me because of the intimacy it's able to get with death--often a much euphemized subject. He talks of the heavy odor, the flies, a tongueless head.

And it's strange that in asking forgiveness, Wilbur focuses more on the neglect--leaving the dog in the thick of summer for five days--than on the merits of the dog.

Also, he's able to tell us all of this while adhering to a sonnet-like form. I think rhyming in poetry suggests a greater degree of mastery.

Uh, thanks,

Corey

An Umbrella in The Snow

A recently-shoveled sidewalk cuts cleanly between opposing snowbanks, dividing the landscape into three perfect, horizontal stripes of white, like some bleached-out foreign flag. Freshly fallen snow blankets the scene. The rugged and pock-marked terrain of yesterday’s trampled wanderings form into gentle slopes, hills and valleys under the new snow creating a hodge-podge of not-quite-foot-sized impressions that half-fill with the shadows of the rising or setting sun.

The would-be pristine landscape is marred by two sets of footprints, one, a jumble of flighty bird feet, small and Y-shaped that flit about the snowbanks’ rises and falls in the random roamings of a creature with a miniscule brain, the other, a series of shoeprints or bootprints, nine simple dance-steps that tango down the pavement. They stop before an umbrella, white and snow-covered, that rests in their path.

It’s a full-sized umbrella, the kind that pokes at the tip and hooks at the end. Fully spread apart, it spans the entire width of the walk as it delicately balances on the handle and on two of its ribs. Like the rest of the landscape, it’s only half lit by the sun and casts a dark umbrella-shaped shadow on the ground it occupies.

photo courtesy of Silah Güler, used with permission.

Introductions

Originally written, Tuesday, May 22.

Me? I’m a drummer. And a pianist—and, I suppose, a guitarist—but mostly, I’m a drummer. Now, don’t take that the wrong way. I’m not some muscle-head, barely-literate skin-smasher with toms the size of timpani. Sure, I’ve got strong arms. I’ve got to. That’s what comes of lugging six drums and four cymbals everywhere, up and down stairs, in to barrooms, out of barrooms, in to the car, out of the car—I know exactly how to stack a six-piece and two guitar cabs in a 2001 Volkswagen GTI and a ’91 Buick Le Sabre. I even know how many drums I can bring on my bicycle trailer—but, my strong-point is my ability to read music: I sight-read class A drumset solos (after a couple tries) and can nail all the horn hits on a swing chart at three hundred beats per minute (or two-hundred for the difficult ones). I can read Don Quixote in Spanish, too. I’ve never tried to read drumset music in Spanish, but, I bet it’s not hard. How can you tell if a note is Spanish you ask? The accent. Ba-dum Ching. I just came up with that. Not too bad for a Tuesday.

Hello and Welcome

This is my first post and it couldn't mean less.