Joseph Fasano
Elegy for a Student
for VS (1994-2013)
For years I thought I saw my brother
in the body of the great-blue heron,
he who had died before he had lived
and so was half at ease in two worlds,
the dark and watery kingdom of death
and the terrible provinces of what
happens, so when the maples
of the game trail splayed this morning
to show the slate gray and the ochre
of what rose there—my shoulder stroked
with thinness as it lifted―
an old ache stirred its ashes
in my marrow, and I lay back
in the old boat hewn of maple
in a wild place I will never again
return to, where the heron rose in fire
through the high pines
and its great wings swayed
the ruins of the spruces.
And when the great wings shook
the tree-line through its music,
when I was left alone in the silence
of that savage place, I would play a game
in a sorrow that was strange to me,
covering my tired eyes with
sycamore, where the new moon
left its lynx prints
on my boot tips, where the wind’s
hymns cut the good October
cold. Tell me, travelers on the darkened
road, where in the woken world
can we find them, those old ghosts
in the singing of their wisdom, those losses
that may come back full of
fire, rising in their wild wings
through the flyways, surrendering
their common songs of morning―
unwavering, unmoving
in their cruelty,
but perfect, but wordless in their
mercy, singing listen, listen to this
hymning: Though the spring winds
cannot lift us, we are lifted.
Though the great way
cannot take us, let us go.
Liberty, NY
Because I wanted to destroy my reverence, I pulled
the bow taut, and when it loosed it bloomed
from the shoulder of the plum-eyed
buck, which fell, covering everything with dust.
Eat, it said,
you are robed in beginning.
And there was more. Whole worlds
to undo, and lay waste to.
I laid my father’s waders in the yard
and when the ravens shaved
their black beaks on the cold
toes, there were whole roads
I hadn’t untraveled,
countries I hadn’t forsaken.
I woke and found I had fire in my hands.
Out in the weeds, behind the bracken,
I piled all the testimonies
and watched them burn.
I danced around them, singing hymnals
in the cedar air
like legions with their flagships
set afire, in praise of the terrible victory.
I lay on the boat in the middle of the lake.
Over the pines the moon rose
with her silver loom
and armor.
The spruces held their bluish breath
and listened. Listen, I whispered,
but it was much too late.
Crossing the waters of my life,
bound to the mast of myself,
disaster was my only open shore.
Broncos
I have driven all night to scatter the ashes
among them.
No moon. Few stars. No river.
What keeps us is what flees from us
most swiftly,
and when the first of the heavy breathings
enters, it lets me stroke
the scent from out its salted
hair—pine sap, onion grasses, censer.
It has run itself through sweetest
thorn, through
briar, its dim blaze
like a lantern in a child’s hand.
No moon. Few stars. No river.
The geldings smell of cinnamon
and clover.
The starlings take
this dark barn
to its rafters, wild
to drive out
raptor, towhee, wren.
Come, I could take you there, this hour:
where the moon
is new, where the early owl
calls her,
where I’ve stood
and let the wild sorrow
enter―
not the thin,
blind crying of a child, but slow
at first, then steady
as the wind is: the blankness
of a stranger
among creatures,
a blind man who has lived out
half his hours,
who is no one
before the coming dusks
of summer,
and who stands
among the thundering
of trouble,
where the wild-
eyed world in roan and
coal and stumbling
has come with such a wild
joy in its body
that it takes no
chains and will not come again.
Joseph Fasano's most recent book is Vincent (Cider Press, 2015), a poem based on the killing of Tim McLean. He is the author of two collections of poems: Fugue for Other Hands (2013), winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award and Poets' Prize nominee; and Inheritance (2014). His poems have appeared in The Yale Review, The Southern Review, Boston Review, Tin House, FIELD, Passages North, and other publications. A winner of the RATTLE Poetry Prize, he has been featured in The Academy of American Poets' poem-a-day program and Verse Daily, and his work is included in the anthology Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion (Abrams, 2015). He teaches at Columbia University and Manhattanville College.
Return to September 2015 Edition
for VS (1994-2013)
For years I thought I saw my brother
in the body of the great-blue heron,
he who had died before he had lived
and so was half at ease in two worlds,
the dark and watery kingdom of death
and the terrible provinces of what
happens, so when the maples
of the game trail splayed this morning
to show the slate gray and the ochre
of what rose there—my shoulder stroked
with thinness as it lifted―
an old ache stirred its ashes
in my marrow, and I lay back
in the old boat hewn of maple
in a wild place I will never again
return to, where the heron rose in fire
through the high pines
and its great wings swayed
the ruins of the spruces.
And when the great wings shook
the tree-line through its music,
when I was left alone in the silence
of that savage place, I would play a game
in a sorrow that was strange to me,
covering my tired eyes with
sycamore, where the new moon
left its lynx prints
on my boot tips, where the wind’s
hymns cut the good October
cold. Tell me, travelers on the darkened
road, where in the woken world
can we find them, those old ghosts
in the singing of their wisdom, those losses
that may come back full of
fire, rising in their wild wings
through the flyways, surrendering
their common songs of morning―
unwavering, unmoving
in their cruelty,
but perfect, but wordless in their
mercy, singing listen, listen to this
hymning: Though the spring winds
cannot lift us, we are lifted.
Though the great way
cannot take us, let us go.
Liberty, NY
Because I wanted to destroy my reverence, I pulled
the bow taut, and when it loosed it bloomed
from the shoulder of the plum-eyed
buck, which fell, covering everything with dust.
Eat, it said,
you are robed in beginning.
And there was more. Whole worlds
to undo, and lay waste to.
I laid my father’s waders in the yard
and when the ravens shaved
their black beaks on the cold
toes, there were whole roads
I hadn’t untraveled,
countries I hadn’t forsaken.
I woke and found I had fire in my hands.
Out in the weeds, behind the bracken,
I piled all the testimonies
and watched them burn.
I danced around them, singing hymnals
in the cedar air
like legions with their flagships
set afire, in praise of the terrible victory.
I lay on the boat in the middle of the lake.
Over the pines the moon rose
with her silver loom
and armor.
The spruces held their bluish breath
and listened. Listen, I whispered,
but it was much too late.
Crossing the waters of my life,
bound to the mast of myself,
disaster was my only open shore.
Broncos
I have driven all night to scatter the ashes
among them.
No moon. Few stars. No river.
What keeps us is what flees from us
most swiftly,
and when the first of the heavy breathings
enters, it lets me stroke
the scent from out its salted
hair—pine sap, onion grasses, censer.
It has run itself through sweetest
thorn, through
briar, its dim blaze
like a lantern in a child’s hand.
No moon. Few stars. No river.
The geldings smell of cinnamon
and clover.
The starlings take
this dark barn
to its rafters, wild
to drive out
raptor, towhee, wren.
Come, I could take you there, this hour:
where the moon
is new, where the early owl
calls her,
where I’ve stood
and let the wild sorrow
enter―
not the thin,
blind crying of a child, but slow
at first, then steady
as the wind is: the blankness
of a stranger
among creatures,
a blind man who has lived out
half his hours,
who is no one
before the coming dusks
of summer,
and who stands
among the thundering
of trouble,
where the wild-
eyed world in roan and
coal and stumbling
has come with such a wild
joy in its body
that it takes no
chains and will not come again.
Joseph Fasano's most recent book is Vincent (Cider Press, 2015), a poem based on the killing of Tim McLean. He is the author of two collections of poems: Fugue for Other Hands (2013), winner of the Cider Press Review Book Award and Poets' Prize nominee; and Inheritance (2014). His poems have appeared in The Yale Review, The Southern Review, Boston Review, Tin House, FIELD, Passages North, and other publications. A winner of the RATTLE Poetry Prize, he has been featured in The Academy of American Poets' poem-a-day program and Verse Daily, and his work is included in the anthology Poem-a-Day: 365 Poems for Every Occasion (Abrams, 2015). He teaches at Columbia University and Manhattanville College.
Return to September 2015 Edition