Mantis 19 (Spring 2021)
"A figure in which secret things confide"
Kenneth Fields
I wrote the first part of First Days without Eavan as soon as I heard of her death, and the rest in the next few days. The poem is part of a long series, more than 700 poems, called Blue Plateau, the product of the last 18 months or so. Eavan was an extraordinary presence, and I’m not alone in missing her every day.
The First Days without Eavan
Chiaroscuro
Emptiness is in the air. You are on your way
Away from us. The morning
Has turned dark, shadow that gives
The light more depth, dark green
Still glimmering. A friend writes,
“She didn’t make it.” I think
You did. Everything I would have
Said to you I will say always.
The Photograph
To be seen
Even by your photograph
Is to be pierced
Straight to the heart.
The ferocity of your love
And its tenderness
Follow me,
Ah, the power of absence,
Here or, alas, apart.
The Hand
Stars wheel still
Above my dark cave.
I hear the little stream
Outside. Inside and out
Coalesce in the ear.
I see a clear
Light before me, two
Or three feet away. It is,
And it is the size
Of a child’s closed hand.
Printed on the wall.
It opens. It opens worlds,
Worlds in my small darkness.
The Voice
My wife is asleep, my dogs are too. I drift in and out
Like the breeze under the eaves. Above the tall trees
Your absence broods, beyond all hurt now. Why, why
Is it comforting to hear your voice through the darkness,
“You are restless, love, you are breakable tonight.”
KENNETH FIELDS is a poet whose collections include The Other Walker, Sunbelly, The Odysseus Manuscripts, and Classic Rough News. He recently retired, having served as a professor of creative writing and English at Stanford University for 52 years.