The Day's Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech Read online

  The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech

  BOA wishes to acknowledge the generosity of the following 40 for 40 Major Gift Donors

  Lannan Foundation

  Gouvernet Arts Fund

  Angela Bonazinga & Catherine Lewis

  Boo Poulin

  POETRY BY STEPHEN DOBYNS

  The Day’s Last Light Reddens the Leaves of the Copper Beech (2016)

  Winter’s Journey (2010)

  Mystery, So Long (2005)

  The Porcupine’s Kisses (2002)

  Pallbearers Envying the One Who Rides (1999)

  Common Carnage (1996)

  Velocities: New and Selected Poems 1966–1992 (1994)

  Body Traffic (1990)

  Cemetery Nights (1987)

  Black Dog, Red Dog (1984)

  The Balthus Poems (1982)

  Heat Death (1980)

  Griffon (1976)

  Concurring Beasts (1972)

  Copyright © 2016 by Stephen Dobyns

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First Edition

  16 17 18 19 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For information about permission to reuse any material from this book please contact The Permissions Company at www.permissionscompany.com or e-mail [email protected].

  Publications by BOA Editions, Ltd.—a not-for-profit corporation under section 501 (c) (3) of the United States Internal Revenue Code—are made possible with funds from a variety of sources, including public funds from the Literature Program of the National Endowment for the Arts; the New York State Council on the Arts, a state agency; and the County of Monroe, NY. Private funding sources include the Lannan Foundation for support of the Lannan Translations Selection Series; the Max and Marian Farash Charitable Foundation; the Mary S. Mulligan Charitable Trust; the Rochester Area Community Foundation; the Steeple-Jack Fund; the Ames-Amzalak Memorial Trust in memory of Henry Ames, Semon Amzalak, and Dan Amzalak; and contributions from many individuals nationwide. See Colophon on page 116 for special individual acknowledgments.

  Cover Design: Sandy Knight

  Cover Art: Copper Beech 62", copyright © by Benjamin Swett

  Interior Design and Composition: Richard Foerster

  Manufacturing: McNaughton & Gunn

  BOA Logo: Mirko

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Dobyns, Stephen, 1941- author.

  Title: The day’s last light reddens the leaves of the copper beech: poems / by Stephen Dobyns.

  Description: First edition. | Rochester, NY: BOA Editions Ltd., 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2016019091 (print) | LCCN 2016024012 (ebook) | ISBN 9781942683162 (paperback: alk. paper) | ISBN 9781942683179 (ebook)

  Subjects: | BISAC: POETRY / American / General.

  Classification: LCC PS3554.O2 A6 2016 (print) | LCC PS3554.O2 (ebook) | DDC 811/.54—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016019091

  BOA Editions, Ltd.

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  A. Poulin, Jr., Founder (1938–1996)

  Shimer friends: Peter Cooley and Peter Havholm

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Part One

  Stories

  Stars

  Wisdom

  Parable: Horse

  Mrs. Brewster’s Second Grade Class Picture

  Furniture

  Water-Ski

  Leaf Blowers

  Parable: Heaven

  Good Days

  Part Two

  Sixteen Sonnets for Isabel

  Monochrome

  Song

  Technology

  Skyrocket

  Lizard

  Swap Shop

  Alien Skin

  Pain

  Niagara Falls

  The Wide Variety

  Skin

  Never

  Casserole

  Inexplicably

  Prague

  Gardens

  Part Three

  The Miracle of Birth

  Fly

  The Inquisitor

  The Poet’s Disregard

  Parable: Gratitude

  Sincerity

  Hero

  Statistical Norm

  Turd

  Parable: Friendship

  The Dark Uncertainty

  No Simple Thing

  Part Four

  Reversals

  Narrative

  Determination

  Jump

  What Happened?

  Philosophy

  Melodrama

  Exercise

  Failure

  Constantine XI

  Literature

  Jism

  Valencia

  Thanks

  Part Five

  Persephone, Etc.

  Crazy Times

  Parable: Fan/Paranoia

  Winter Wind

  So It Happens

  Tinsel

  Future

  Parable: Poetry

  Scale

  Cut Loose

  Recognitions

  Laugh

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Colophon

  PART ONE

  Stories

  All stories are sad when they reach their end.

  The rain comes; the night falls; Malone dies alone.

  With little bites, the pragmatic devours the idealistic.

  A bit of ash, a grain of sand; dust blows down the avenues.

  Only yesterday the world shook its pom-poms;

  roads extended their promise under an azure sky:

  here an oasis, there an oasis, fat dawdles in between.

  Pulled down from their branches, the hours

  were quickly tasted and tossed away. What’s this,

  clouds on the horizon, or do we need glasses?

  Between the countries of Arriving and Leaving,

  no frontier, no change in the weather till later.

  The murmuring, unruly mob lumbering behind;

  the walls each morning yellowed by setting sun.

  Stars

  The man took the wrong fork in the road.

  It was out in the country. They saw

  no signs. It was getting dark. They began

  to blame each other. Should they keep

  going straight or should they turn around?

  They drove past farms without lights.

  The man said, If we reach a crossroad,

  we can just turn right. His wife said,

  I think you should turn around. The man

  was driving. They kept going straight.

  There’s got to be a road up here someplace,

  he said. His wife didn’t answer. By now

  it was pitch black. In their lights, the trees,

  pressing close to the road, looked like people

  wanting to speak, but thinking better of it.

  The farther they drove, the farther they got

  from one another, until it seemed they sat

  in two separate cars. Who’s this person

  next to me? This thought came to them both.

  They weren’t newlyweds. They had children.

  He’s trying to upset me, thought the woman.

  She thinks she always knows best, thought

  the man. They were on their way to dinner

  at a friend’s farmhouse in the country. Now


  they’d be late. It would take longer to go back

  than to go straight, said the man. The woman

  knew he hated it when she remained silent

  so she said nothing. The woods were so thick

  one could walk for miles and never get out.

  The stars looked huge, as if they had come down

  closer in the dark. The woman wanted to say

  she could see no familiar constellations,

  but she said nothing. The man wanted to say,

  Get out of the car! Just to make her speak!

  Where had they come to? They had driven

  out of one world into another. They began

  to recall remarks each had made in the past.

  Only now did they realize their meanings,

  hear their half-hidden barbs. They recalled

  missing objects: a favorite vase, a picture

  of his mother. How foolish to think they had

  only been misplaced. They recalled remarks

  made by friends before the wedding, remarks

  that now seemed like warnings. Ice crystals

  formed between them, a cold so deep that only

  an ice ax could shatter it. Who is this monster

  I married? They both thought this. Soon they’d

  think of lawyers and who would get the kids.

  Then, through the trees, they saw a brightly lit house.

  They had come the long way around. The man

  parked behind the other cars and opened the door

  for his wife. She took his arm as they walked

  to the steps. They heard laughter. Their friends

  were just sitting down at the table. On the porch

  the man told his wife how good she looked,

  while she fixed his tie. Both had a memory

  of ugliness: a story told to them by somebody

  they had never liked. As he opened the door,

  she glanced upward and held him for a second.

  How beautiful the stars look tonight, she said.

  Wisdom

  With the door shut the child sat in the closet

  with his fingers pressed in his ears. Tell me

  the truth, wasn’t it wisdom? Hadn’t he had

  a sudden insight into the nature of the world?

  One time my stepson in third grade refused

  to take any more tests. His reason? If you take one,

  they’ll only give you another. Better call a halt

  right now. He had caught on to the grownups’

  stratagem to drag him into adulthood. What

  was in it for him? he asked. Nothing nice.

  Likewise the boy in the closet had become

  temporarily resistant to the blandishments

  of the world. Two hours later, his own body

  turned against him and he crept downstairs

  to dinner. But when his parents pointed out

  the joys of growing up, he remained in doubt.

  Who knew how the thought had come to him?

  TV, a friend’s chatter? Perhaps he had seen

  a picture of a conveyor belt. Click, click—

  so he’d go through life until he was dumped

  on a trash heap. Or perhaps he had deduced

  what he was leaving behind, the shift from

  innocence to consequence, from protection

  to fragility. Fortunately, stories like the boy

  shutting himself up in the closet are scarce,

  and his parents joked about it to their friends.

  By now, I don’t know, he’s on his second or

  third marriage, has a job that’s made him rich,

  but that time in the closet, five years old and

  calculating what life was destined to deal out,

  how different it must have seemed from what

  he had ever imagined, so he made his decision

  and crept into the closet, wasn’t it wisdom?

  Parable: Horse

  He peered into the bar mirror over the bottles

  of gin and whiskey. Yes, he thought, he really

  did have a long face. Why hadn’t he noticed it

  before? But looking out of his moony eyes,

  he rarely wondered how others saw him, since,

  apart from mirrors, he rarely saw himself.

  Sure he was tall, no surprise there. Walking

  along city sidewalks, he felt that was why people

  slid to a stop when they saw him. But perhaps

  it was his face that upset them, its odd expanse,

  tombstone teeth, satchel mouth, black rubber lips.

  People gawked and, glancing back, he saw

  they were gawking still. None of this was new.

  Yet each occasion once more fueled his sense

  of isolation, which had begun at birth and came

  from being an only child. He had no memory

  of his father. His mother ran off after a few weeks

  and he’d been raised by strangers. Stubbornly,

  he worked to be strong, get on with the business

  of living, to focus his thoughts on the road ahead.

  But then a cruel wisecrack or brutal snicker

  would tumble him back to the beginning again,

  the self-doubt and crushing solitude. Did it really

  matter if he had a long face? But it wasn’t just that,

  it was his whole cluster of body parts. Alone they

  might have been fine, even the boxy feet. Then,

  when all joined into the oneness that was him,

  it changed. Not only did people stare, they looked

  offended; as if his very presence upset their pride

  and sense of self-worth; as if they were saying, How

  can it be good fortune for us to walk here, if you

  walk here as well; as if to see him and smell him

  lessened them as human beings. Soon they’d brood

  about their failings: broken marriages, runaway kids.

  Was this his only power, to make others feel lesser?

  How many of these downcast do we see on the street

  whose insides are marked by scars, who show off

  their apparent good cheer and lack of concern only

  to conceal their fears? And even if we saw them

  what could we do? The bartender coughed to get

  his attention, half-grinning, half-appalled.

  Why shouldn’t he stay? He had no one to visit,

  no place to go; he had only these long afternoons

  in anonymous bars with the televisions turned low.

  Give me a Jack Daniels, he said, and put it in a bowl.

  Mrs. Brewster’s Second Grade Class Picture

  That’s me, standing in the third row

  with a wiseacre grin, skinny and blond,

  taller than the others. Of the rest, George

  and Jane, Jacqueline and Tom, a class

  of sixteen and I recall nearly all the names:

  the boys in white shirts or plaid; the girls

  in skirts and bobby socks. Mrs. Brewster

  stands to the right, dark hair, a benign smile.

  She, who I’d thought old, looks about forty:

  Bailey School, East Lansing, Michigan.

  By now roughly sixty years have passed,

  while the lives that, in 1948, were scarcely

  at the start of life have almost completed

  their separate arcs, if they haven’t done so

  already. Strange to think that some are dead.

  A few of these children had great success,

  a few had moderate triumphs, others

  were dismal failures. Some were granted

  happiness each day they spent on earth;

  some felt regret with every step. I know

  nothing of how their lives turned out.

  Look at Margaret sitting cross-legged

  in
the front row in a light-colored dress.

  The black and white photograph can’t

  do justice to her fine red hair. A smile

  still uncorrupted by appetite or cunning,

  no telling how long it retained its luster.

  But all must have pursued life with various

  degrees of passion, arrived at decisions

  they felt the only ones possible to make.

  How many would now think otherwise,

  that the indispensable trip to Phoenix

  might as easily have been to New York,

  that the choice of a career in law might

  just as well have been a job in a bank?

  What is needed after all? Which choices

  are the ones really necessary? Could I

  have been as happy as a doctor or even

  a cop? No burning passion lies hidden

  in these faces, all that came later, if it

  came at all. But how bright and eager

  they appear, how ready to get started.

  One morning Mrs. Brewster gave us a treat,

  showing her slides of Yellowstone Park.

  In the dim light of drawn shades we stared

  at a buffalo calf crossing a brook, a bald eagle

  perched on a dead branch, Fire Hole River,