Like Guilt
Milton wrote of man’s first disobedience and the fruit.
I write of the wobbly wheel on the boy’s pinewood race car.
Shall the abstract triumph over the concrete?
Holden, eyes agleam with reverence and anticipation
hands the pine block, a grail, to his father
to be shaped, sanded (son-like) into a winner.
Flights of hope: the storm trooper seat, dragon design,
drilling the hidden hole. But doubt too stalks here: no matter.
The still-wet paint walk to the church, the ritual weigh-in,
magic donut magnets and powdered graphite.
Excitement convulses. The number is called. The heat.
Quick from the start. Look at her go.
But race after race, waddle after wobble. No
adjustment adequate.
Eyes try not to look disappointed.
The boy: “It feels like guilt.”
Can any concrete trump that abstraction?
Is guilt, like agency, a gift,
or, like conviction, a choice?
Late winter, my father and I pruned ancient peach trees.
July midnight I turned three hours of water, a shallow lake
sinking root deep. Mid-September—the beckoning fruit,
skin colored, dusted with seductive furze, each exquisite
sphere fitting perfectly my male cupped hand. I raise it
to my lips: gift of nature and my labor. The joyous juice
can not be contained, runs down my face onto chest and soil.
I slurp, wipe chin, smile, think,
“These must be saved—sold, bottled, shared.”
Well within my rights, I eat a second peach
with all the virtue of the first,
but spiced this time—Muse, can you tell me why—
with something like guilt.
For E. d’ E
Scott Samuelson
Nov 17, 2010
2 comments:
Thanks for the comments on Silly. Great to hear from you.
Love this poem. What a fortunately named boy -- the three-lover in me wants to see a third literary figure alongside Milton and Holden... unless I've missed it?
Faves: "waddle after wobble", "three hours of water", everything from "still-wet paint walk" to "No adjustment adequate" (though I'd consider omitting "still").
I think I'm against the word "agleam" just in general. I wonder if there's a simpler, more elegant way to get the "grail" and "son-like" ideas across.
Reading it again, I'm now wondering if really polarizing (via punctuation, stanza breaks) the abstract and concrete within the poem itself would strengthen it.
Holden's eyes: reverent and eager.
Hope: storm trooper seat, dragon design, drilling the hidden hole. Doubt too: but no matter.
Etc.
Ah, peaches.
Scott,
You have a conversational tone I can never achieve. It fits. It makes the poem something of a teacher and also a student presenting a thesis. A hypotheses synthesized from the evidence of concrete life. Also, because of guilt, the Garden, and tone the speaker becomes a student or child of something larger. Presenting the query to God even.
(You taught me "synthesize" by the way.)
That's my interpretation and feel of it. It's a beautiful poem stating its own struggles. Very meta. Also very modern. To show the construction of the poem, of the conundrum within the structure.
I enjoyed 'son-like'. It was actually a surprising slap of revelation. You set it up. It was a question you answered.
My only suggestion is switch the first two stanzas. The second stanza is a beautiful set-up. Give us the question second. It still leaves enough time between it and the call back to concrete/abstract.
Good to see your new work.
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