Sorry for the silence. It's funny how creativity begets creativity, and the lack thereof seems to do the same. I've had more Half-Price Books adventures, but no new poets to show for it (I did make out like a bandit in the dollar rack though). I've still been looking at Carver, and marveling at how he does memory and nostalgia without falling into traps. (Traps'n'tropes should be the name of a pulp bookstore).
My Work
I look up and see them starting
down the beach. The young man
is wearing a packboard to carry the baby.
This leaves his hands free
so that he can take one of his wife’s hands
in his, and swing his other. Anyone can see
how happy they are. And intimate. How steady.
They are happier than anyone else, and they know it.
Are gladdened by it, and humbled.
They walk to the end of the beach
and out of sight. That’s it, I think,
and return to this thing governing
my life. But in minutes
they come walking back along the beach.
The only thing different is that they have changed sides.
He is on the other side of her now,
the ocean side. She is on this side.
But they are still holding hands. Even more
in love, if that’s possible. And it is.
Having been there for a long time myself.
Theirs has been a modest walk, fifteen minutes
down the beach, fifteen minutes back.
They’ve had to pick their way
over some rocks and around huge logs,
tossed up from when the sea ran wild.
They walk quietly, slowly, holding hands.
They know the water is out there
but they’re so happy that they ignore it.
The love in their young faces. The surround of it.
Maybe it will last forever. If they are lucky,
and good, and forbearing. And careful. If they
go on loving each other without stint.
Are true to each other—that most of all.
As they will be, of course, as they will be,
as they know they will be.
I go back to my work. My work goes back to me.
A wind picks up out over the water.
This couple reflects the speaker back on himself. The walkers go out and back, his eyes stray away from his work and back to it, he travels back in memory, then returns to the present. If the title is an indication that he compares his relationship to his work to an intimate partnership, it is comforting to think that the work will still be there as life evolves.
The Windows of the Summer Vacation Houses
They withheld judgement, looking down at us
silently, in the rain, in our little boat--
as three lines went into the dark water
for salmon. I'm talking of the Hood Canal
in March, when the rain won't let up.
Which was fine by me. I was happy
to be on the water, trying out
new gear. I heard of the death,
by drowning, of a man I didn't know.
And the death in the woods of another,
hit by a snag. They don't call them
widow-makers for nothing.
Hunting stories of bear,
elk, deer, cougar--taken in and out
of season. More hunting stories.
Women, this time. And this time
I could join in. It used to be girls.
Girls of 15, 16, 17, 18--and we
the same age. Now it was women. And married
women at that. No longer girls. Women.
Somebody or other's wife. They mayor
of this town, for instance. His wife.
Taken. The deputy sheriff's wife, the same.
But he's an asshole, anyway.
Even a brother's wife. It's not anything
to be proud of, but somebody had to go
and do his homework for him. We caught
two small ones, and talked a lot, and laughed.
But as we turned into the landing
a light went on in one of those houses
where nobody was supposed to be.
Smoke drifted up from the chimney
of this place we'd looked at as empty.
And suddenly, like that--I remembered Maryann.
When we were both young.
The rare coin of those mint days!
It was there and gone
by the time we hooked the boat to the trailer.
But it was something to recall.
It turned dark as I watched the figure
move to stand at the window and look
down. And I knew then those things happened
so long ago must have happened, but not
to us. No, I don't think people could go on living
if they had lived those things. It couldn't
have been us.
The people I'm talking about--I'm sure
I must have read about somewhere.
They were not the main characters, no,
as I'd thought at first and for a long
while after. But some others you
sympathized with, even loved, and cried for--
just before they were taken away
to be hanged, or put somewhere.
We drove off without looking back
at the houses. Last night
I cleaned fish in the kitchen.
This morning it was still dark
when I made coffee. And found blood
on the porcelain sides of the sink.
More blood on the counter. A trail
of it. Drops of blood on the bottom
of the refrigerator where the fish
lay wrapped and gutted.
Everywhere this blood. Mingling with thoughts--
in my mind of the time we'd had
that dear young wife, and I.
For me, the keys to this one are "It turned dark as I watched the figure"...."this morning it was still dark". This memory is a much bigger shadow, presumably of Carver's failed marriage to Maryann. I know we're always supposed to assume that the speaker is not the poet, but this one's pretty clear and well-known. In this darkness he finds the trail of blood, whether real or imagined, and we remember that in the opening lines "I heard of the death" was on his mind as he experienced this memory.
For me, the theme of nostalgia has always been kinda fraught, so I like to see how others make memory work for them.
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