I will start out this post by quoting myself (how’s that for arrogance?) from what I wrote about the William Agee poem “This Shining Night” from a previous Christmas concert: “Poetry isn’t supposed to be an art form that can be reduced to simple explanations; otherwise, why write the poem at all? Just explain what you’re trying to say in a clear, concise paragraph and forget the versifying.” You can enjoy the imagery and wit in these four short lyrics without having any explanation or context. But if you’re like me, you’ll appreciate the words much more if you have some sort of context for them. I was very fortunate to find an article from The Guardian newspaper in its “poem of the week” column that makes various meanings clear without trying to take out all the mystery. I’d highly recommend reading it. (You can also read the poems in their entirety there. They are of course copyrighted, so I am including only short extracts below with the kind permission of the author, Gwyneth Lewis, and her publisher, Bloodaxe Books. Wouldn’t you just love to know how they came up with the name of that publisher? I don’t see any explanation on their website.)
To begin with, then, a vital piece of information about the poems as a whole from the article: “The former national poet of Wales commemorates her aunt in a bright and lively elegy that sees birds play metaphorical and metamorphic roles.” It’s a little jarring to have an elegy, a poem in praise of the dead, described as “bright and lively,” isn’t it? But if the person being described was that way in life, then something lugubrious wouldn’t do justice to the subject. Lewis likes to use birds in her poetry as a whole anyway; “Birder” is taken from the poetry collection Sparrow Tree. So she, like her aunt, could be labeled as a “birder,” that is, a bird lover and bird watcher.
Each of the four sections presents a different view of the aunt’s death. Section one presents us with midwinter, which may be literally or metaphorically the season in which she died, a “season for seeing through time and space.” That phrase reminds me of the bareness and bleakness of winter, with no obscuring leaves or flowers, bare branches of trees that don’t shut out the sky. “Before the War” (World War II must be the reference, so back in her youth) the aunt was known as “sparrow,” perhaps an actual nickname or just a reference to her being a quick, light person. Now, though, as she lies dying, her breath has “geese” and “oboes” in it, a seeming description of how labored and noisy it is. “Each bird’s a letter, making sense for a moment, then not” conjures up for me those labored breaths, each one perhaps at first sounding like a word, those around the bed leaning forward, thinking, “Is she trying to say something?” but then—nothing. Outside, the creek is “sluggish with ice” and its “pulse slows,” mirroring the aunt’s life ebbing.
Section two is a complete contrast to the first. We are given a comic picture of the wild turkeys who come to the aunt’s bird feeder. They are like a ballet corps in their “copper tutus,” their hopping and strutting mimicking various ballet steps. The tom turkey is leading his harem. Then, suddenly, they’re gone. Section three focuses attention first on an individual bird: a junco, a type of sparrow, shows off the various aspects of its species: its “train” (tail), “down jacket” (the feathers on its body) and its “profile.” The poet thinks about her own death: she’d like to hear many such birds “ricochet” outside her window, “feel the strobe” of “small flocks feeding.” If you think of the sight and sound of many wings fluttering the “strobe” reference will make sense. What “litany” or ceremonial prayers would she like to deserve? That she had birds around her: woodpeckers, waxwings, chickadees, all small common varieties.
Finally (hang on, folks, we’re almost done), section four can be said to capture the moment of death. It’s “no small thing” that the aunt has lived in nature, in the eyes of birds such as cardinals and treecreepers (not a type of frog, as I first thought, but a small bird species). They’ve seen her as a source of food—if they miss their “rendezvous” with her when she fills the bird feeder, they have hunger. But then . . . the dying woman is the birds, or is in the birds, with the watchers waiting (around the deathbed?) as the birds rise and scatter “to the final slam of the kitchen door.” The brisk, birdlike woman who would come out and fill the bird feeder and then go quickly back inside, wasting no time, slamming the door in her haste, has now experienced that finality herself.
Beth Gadbaw and Margot Krimmel’s musical settings of these short poems are . . . perfect. The music captures and intensifies the meaning of the words. I am sorry not to have anything to post as a performance, but I thoroughly enjoyed getting to perform these songs myself.
© Debi Simons
