Mardi Gras Series #1, Pastel, by John Cummings
Father Senses the Approach of Death
10 December 1977
The wind blows off shingles, the birds
hang on for life. As night follows night
the moon has disappeared, and I shrink
small and smaller till I’ve shrunk from sight.
An old man draws near on bony feet,
root ball for head, willow wand in his mouth.
How do, he says, and is young again and old.
I’ve come to take you out.
(This is what the Darvon does
to your head,
or maybe it’s the Seconal:
they bring back the dead.)
I know him by his voice. His parents named
him Honey. Hon to his friends, at twelve
he called himself Edison—it’s what
a man does, make a name for himself.
He learned to dowse for coins, to wizard
water out of the earth, the way a man
entering a dark room divines a woman
from the scent of roses on her hands.
It’s what men do, find things in the dark.
I smell you in the corner, under the switched
off lamp, sweating fear and guilt and sighs,
wanting to go out the way a fire untended
gutters and dies.
He dowses me for courage. His willow brand
is burning.
And over me the trees draw in
like angels’ wings.
____________
J.S. Absher
Review by Dan Liberthson
The second stanza is potently, mythically uncanny, with its image of old man Death with a root ball for a head, and his casual, dated greeting, “How do. / I’ve come to take you out.” Utterly spooky! The rest of the poem is rife with evocative archetypal images and situations (the Hon/Edison segment, dousing, divining a woman by scent, and more). In places I had difficulty determining whose the words are and to whom they refer: the father, the narrator, or Death. I suspect the poet intends this confusion or conflation—all three wreathing together—which though—or perhaps because—disorienting, adds to the baffling mystery and power of the poem.
Review by Patrick Meeds
One of the keys too enjoying a poem for me is being able to identify with what is happening in the poem. A lot of times this is what inspires me to write. I want to express my version of this event. This is a scene I recognize and the poet has done an amazing job of illustrating it.
I really enjoyed the imagery in this poem. The first two stanzas are packed with vivid descriptions that bring the scene to life. The third stanza gives us a clue (along with the title) as to where the poem is taking place. It could almost be described as a poem of place.
There are also many excellent line breaks. I particularly enjoyed the ones in stanza five. Turning wizard into a verb and divines a woman specifically.
This is a poem of life and death. Of visitation and hopefully, redemption.
Review by Cedar Koons
This poem features a dreamlike narrative, as implied in its title. The reader is drawn into an almost fairy tale visitation in wintry 1977, where an altered state of mind and severe illness prompt a visitation from a dead man. “Hon” is brought to life with images of his archaic form and diction, and his quaint history is recounted with deft touches. Readers are swept along, wondering what will happen in this fever dream. Rather than getting a tidy tale, we are treated to a liminal near-death experience. Not knowing what happened made me reread the poem several times, and each time, more sparks from Hon’s willow brand caused me to lean in, like the trees outside the window.
Review by Jared Pearce
What I like best here is how the poem seems maybe too facile at the beginning, but in the middle, when we’re reminded what men do, the poem turns harder, darker. The rhymes are there, but they’re cast in fading colors, and that switch draws the grief, which is lovely, in its way.
Review by Zeke Sanchez
“Father Senses the Approach of Death” comes across to me as a surreal poem. Right from the beginning as the moon shrinks, the narrator also shrinks to nothing. The old man with the root ball head dies and is young again as in reincarnation. The old man appears to be a personification of Death. But the narrator then gives us a series of actions the man took as he grew up which defined him as a man. It is a little incongruous that that old man with the root ball head dowses the narrator for courage. And that the trees draw in their wings to protect the man. A surreal poem with a lack of a clear narrative line but with a very clear sense of a message.