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."