Michael Diehl, Sunset
Beatrice
she was a meteor in our midst
sun breaking through a thousand years of fog
a little cinnamon roll of lightning and true love
and we were trying to shield our eyes
but that didn’t work she’s so bright
she shines right through us we’re not
even shadows of our former selves just
faint outlines like that Roman bard she’s talking to
can’t even tell who that is smiling and nodding and
we never smile.
Then the lightning wraps her up again and she’s
gone but the air still looks like mead
and is that Virgil? Vivified, sunburned
he turns and heads up toward the High Gate
and out of sight.
_____________
Ben Jeffery
Review by Dave Mehler
I will confess my favorite part of this poem is ‘cinnamon roll of lightning and true love’–I think of it as a cinnamon roll of light because true love isn’t a thing you can see really. There may be physical or demonstrable manifestations of love shown but in this case I think it’s simply light. Beatrice is such an interesting figure in literature. Dante was married, but for some reason this girl represented the epitome of spiritual holiness and is his paradigm of virtue and purity, somebody he as a teen glimpsed once or twice, who, herself a teen, died young? This being a prototype of chivalry (Dante’s dates: 1265-1321) and putting a ‘mistress’ on a pedestal of holiness and chastity and virtue or from a pagan perspective his muse? The Commedia, however, as a poetic and literary accomplishment is up there with Shakespeare and Milton and other great literature. But, as a 700 year old work is very far from a modern or contemporary mindset, right? I do not believe this is bad, but requires work and study to approach and truly understand.
As with the other piece of Jeffery’s in this issue, I see very original treatment of a very old topic here. Cinnamon roll of light? A type of mini-theophany, or transfiguration with instead of Jesus, Moses and Elijah we have here Beatrice appearing to Virgil to commission his help as a guide to Dante? But as with the other piece in this set, there is an undercurrent of that humor, that wry grin.
But Jeffery doesn’t stop with cinnamon roll Beatrice, oh no…then there’s sunburned Virgil, post nuclear blast appearance? Dante is not in the picture here, but the speaker whoever he is for this poem appears to be to me a bit like Peter, a bit inarticulate, on the mount of transfiguration–Hey, Jesus and Moses and Elijah, shouldn’t I set up some tents for our divine council? And then the too short conversation about who knows what and whoosh, blazing light, and gone. Beatrice appears and talks with Dante’s guide, and while he may be the subject of discussion Dante isn’t present yet. Why does he get to be the subject of such preferential treatment–why is he chosen? Perhaps it’s to save Virgil, who as a pagan, can work out his salvation (and depart limbo) after his work for Dante at the end of this, and God knows Dante will go on to author the Commedia? Why is Scrooge offered a second chance and Marley was passed over? Who knows? God does and can do whatever he wants.
Also I love the bit about and we never smile–this is Italy in the early middle ages–Dante has been royally screwed over through his political connections that were complicated–yet because of this is on his way to being one of the greatest poets the world has ever seen–but doesn’t know this, and supposes and hints to us that shades are not even a shadow of their former selves…
This is a very funny, engaging, and brilliantly original poem!