POEMS OF THE DAY: James Schuyler's "Poem" and "The Day"
From his 1974 collection Hymn to Life, here are two of my favorite James Schuyler poems. The first one, "Poem," is from the section in Hymn to Life called "Loving You," and is ostensibly a love poem to the same "you" that features prominently throughout the rest of the section. And yet, a poem is always about itself, too, especially with a title like that.…Reading it with this in mind adds an interesting dimension.
POEM
Your enchantment
enchains me, stretched
out there, planked
like a steak or
a shad in season.
And there, where
you flower there.
You're cool to my
touch, soon growing
warm, smooth but not
sleek. I love you––
too much? Not quite
possible. The thought
of harm from you is
far from me as those
Vermont hills, en-
flamed, in October,
as I by you, in their
seasonal rush. To
go up in leaves! I
wish I could, as I
sink down beside you.
Such strange sensuality in this poem ("planked / like a steak," "smooth but not / sleek") and, as with the rest of the love poems in Hymn to Life, a sense of potential danger, a sense of perhaps loving a man "too much" ("Your enchantment / enchains me," "The thought / of harm from you…"). And those flaming Vermont hills: how far away are they, really? I'm confused by the prepositions, and by the narrator's desire to "go up in leaves!" at the end of the poem, not to mention the surrender implied by the acting of "sink[ing] down beside you."
A good love poem has to have tensions like these, don't you think?
And from Hymn to Life's fourth section, "Evenings in Vermont":
THE DAY
The day is gray
as stone: the stones
embedded in the
dirt road are chips
of it. How dark it
gets here in the
north when a cold
front moves in. The
wind starts up. It
keens around the
house in long
sharp signs at
windows. More
leaves come down
and are borne
sidewise. In the
woods a flock
of small white
moths fluttered,
flying, like the
leaves. The wind
in trees, a
heavy surge, drowns
out the water-
fall: from here,
a twisted thread.
Winters knocks at
the door. Don't
let it in. But
those shivering,
hovering late moths,
the size of big
snowflakes: what
were they doing
there, so late
in the year? Had
they laid their
eggs, and fluttered
in the then still
woods, aware of
the coming wind,
the storm, their
end? But they
were beautiful,
there in the woods,
frantic with life.
*sigh* What a poem. The day gray as stones, the bits of which makes up the dirt road's stones. The "twisted thread" of the waterfall. And those moths, "the size of big / snowflakes"! Are those moths all of us? Fluttering around in opposition to the coming season, aware of our end? "Winter knocks at / the door. Don't / let it in."
