The Last
Love Poem
I Will Ever
Write
POEMS
Gregory Orr
Adjusting type size may change line breaks. Landscape mode may help to preserve line breaks.
FOR TRISHA
Contents
And So
Song of What Happens
No use closing . . .
Dark Song
Song of Aftermath—“Standing, now . . .”
Ode to Nothing
*
Reading Dickinson
Lines Standing in for Religious Conviction
Ode to Some Lyric Poets
Ode to Words
Song of Lyric Geography
*
You sat alone in a room . . .
There are questions . . .
The Undertoad
Trying hard just to listen . . .
Aftermath Sonnet—“Letting my tongue sleep . . .”
How often I’ve wished . . .
It’s narrow . . .
Aftermath Inventory—“Shattered? . . .”
For Trisha
We were that joke . . .
Ode to the Country of Us
*
Sitting at a dinner table . . .
The Ferris Wheel at the World’s Fair
Dark Proverbs for Dark Times
I Don’t Really Care, Do You?
Charlottesville Elegy
Hector Bidding Wife and Child a Last Good-bye
Downtown Tour
Lyric Revises the World
Ode to These Socks
*
Coleridge and Me
Emily Dickinson Test-Drives the First Home Sewing Machine
Into a thousand pieces?
Some phrases move . . .
Ode to Left-Handedness
Certain poems offer me . . .
For weeks now . . .
Still Life
For My Daughters
For My Mother
The last love poem I will ever write . . .
Young, I took it all so . . .
Secret Constellation
Inscription
It’s time . . .
Acknowledgments
The Last
Love Poem
I Will Ever
Write
And So
“He’s already in heaven,” she said,
“Sitting down to feast with Jesus.”
Back then, if I had been eight or ten
And she had been a peer instead
Of an adult, I might have said:
“You must have a hole in your head,”
Meaning: You must be crazy.
But I was twelve and though
I thought she was insane I was too
Polite and frightened to say as much.
And the hole was not a metaphor
But one a bullet had made that day
In my brother’s head. And I
Was the one who put it there.
I wonder if she was thinking
Of the painted window
In our dinky church: the one
Where Jesus sat at a picnic table
With bread and a jug of something?
Was it an image of the Wedding
At Cana? Or the Last Supper
Before any of the other guests
Had arrived?
He didn’t look
Lonely, He just sat with His arms
Spread and His empty hands open
As if He was patiently waiting
For someone to put something in them:
A plate of food? Some nails? A gun?
Who knows what He was up to,
What He thought or felt?
He was in His world
And I was in mine.
This is all I knew that was true:
I was alive; my brother was dead.
When I closed my eyes I saw him
Lying at my feet.
I knew
God and I were through,
And after that, what is there?
I imagined I was floating
Alone in a vast abyss
Like a little cloud,
But I wasn’t—I was falling
As fast as a material body can,
But the distance was infinite
And there was nothing near
By which to judge
What was happening, and so
It seemed I wasn’t moving at all.
Song of What Happens
If I wrote in a short story
Or novel that when my father
Was young, about thirteen,
He and his best friend
Stole a rifle from the car trunk
Of a man who worked
For his family, then took
Paper plates from the kitchen
And went out to a field,
Intending to toss them
Into the air and shoot them . . .
That there’d been an accident
And he killed his best friend.
Sad, but believable—it happens
More often than you’d imagine
In the country.
But then I add:
My dad grew up, married,
Had four sons, gave each
Of the two oldest
Shotguns when they were
Twelve and ten
So they could all hunt pheasants.
And when I turned twelve,
He gave me a rifle—a .22.
And that same year
We went hunting deer
In a far field on our property
And my gun, that I didn’t know
Was loaded, went off
And killed my younger brother
Who was standing beside me.
Two boys, my father and I,
Barely in their teens,
Killing two others they loved
By accident—that kind
Of coincidence isn’t credible
In fiction, much less in a poem
Where you’re not allowed
To describe too much
Or explain, or ascribe motives
Because each word is precious
And the fewer you use
The better the poem.
And yet,
I’m telling you it’s true,
It really happened.
All of us
Can see the pattern here—
Two young boys kill
Someone they love
By accident.
But do you
Think God planned it?
And if so, why?
Do you think my father
Unconsciously arranged
A repetition, hoping
It would end differently?
I’m happy for you if you
Can explain it
To your satisfaction.
I can’t.
I’m only telling you
About it, because
It’s factual; it happened.
And because I want you to know
How strange life is.
No use closing . . .
No use closing my eyes
Now—
After
The lightning flash.
Wince and blinding—
They’re both
Already inside me.
Dark Song
The heart, altering, alters all.
Sometimes, it happens and who
Knows why—the world
Suddenly turns ugly
And decides to crush you.
Don’t waste time trying
To understand, ju
st fight
For your life, do all you can
To survive.
That’s what
Jacob did on the riverbank
When he was ambushed
By that cruel angel.
All night
He fought against a silent,
Giant malice that was
Determined to destroy him.
Yes, he came through it alive—
I’m with you on that:
By all means, let’s celebrate
What a doughty human can do
Against impossible odds.
But who says the actual
Battle was the worst of it?
There’s also aftermath.
I wish Jacob good luck
Trying to figure out
Why God would
Send such a creature to do
Such a job.
Maybe he got
A blessing; maybe not,
But I’m personally certain
Of this much:
As that
Bleak dawn came on
And he sat in the mud,
Recovering,
Rubbing his torn shoulder
And bruised legs,
Jacob’s heart was filling
With a bitter
Wisdom
Blended of tears,
Rage, fear and shame.
For me, the only question is:
After that, what cup?
What cup could he drink from?
Standing, now, in a place
Scrubbed raw by flood.
I, who sought neither
Rapture nor fracture.
Now the question is:
What to do with shatter?
Someone else’s map?
I’d end up half-trapped;
And even the best often
Just guess what’s next.
If I’m to grow now,
It will be through grieving;
It will be through this
Deepening I didn’t choose.
Ode to Nothing
Sorrow makes children of us all—
the wisest knows nothing.
EMERSON
1. At the Heart of It All
When scientists tell us
Atoms are mostly
Made of nothing,
They are speaking
As priests charged
With a deep mystery:
How nothing holds
The universe together;
How nothing
Is the secret force
At the heart of it all.
In the old days, theologians
Asked: Is there an angel
Of nothing
Among the heavenly hosts?
The answer is No.
Nor does an angel
Of nothing dwell in hell.
Nothing is the only
Angel and cannot
Rise or fall.
All of us surround
The angel of nothing,
Whizzing our winged
Elliptical circuits of worship
Like electrons
Orbiting a nucleus.
With our restless fly-buzz
We create
The material world.
2. If They Bowed
The wisest among us
Always believed in
Nothing. When the lamp
Of faith went out,
They knew nothing
Remained. They knew
Nothing was there
Like a pillar
Of darkness,
Holding up the sky.
They knew nothing
Was necessary
To explain the way
Things were . . .
Some of them hid
Their belief
In nothing. Some
Even praised
The created world
And said they loved
Everything, but
Really nothing
Sat on their heart’s
Throne and held sway.
If they bowed at all,
It was to nothing.
If they prayed,
They prayed to nothing.
Is dew on the grass
At sunrise nothing?
Is the vowel
Vibrating the open
Throat nothing?
Yes. Nothing
Surrounds us.
Nothing is inside us.
Nothing is the pure
Source where the soul
Kneels at dawn,
Where it drinks, then sings.
3. The Journey
Nothing guides you through the night
Woods. Nothing knows the way.
Nothing conducted all the old poets
When they were lost souls.
Nothing rose up in the form of a crow
Or a figure in a cone of light.
Nothing stood before them and said:
“I am here. You will not perish
Alone in the dark.”
It’s true
The lamp of faith has gone out.
It’s true, the trees are a thicket
Of skeletal hands lifted to halt you.
It’s true the strewn leaves hide
The path. But nothing is here
Beside you. Nothing will lead you.
You can depend on nothing.
To believe in nothing is the first step.
4. Its Function
Nothing stands between
The abyss and you.
Nothing keeps you
From falling off
The edge.
Nothing
Is that important.
People think:
“There’s always
Something
The gaping cracks
In the ruined hut
Of self.”
They’re wrong.
There’s nothing.
5. Letting In
I’m afraid I’ve let nothing
Into this poem.
It wasn’t an easy decision
Because nothing
Is a difficult theme.
Of course, that’s only
My opinion. Others
Disagree—many say:
Nothing is easy.
But I know better.
From my point of view,
Nothing is impossible.
That’s why I’ve tried
To keep nothing
Out of this poem.
6. Some of Its Qualities
Nothing has a heart of gold.
Nothing waits up for you
Way past midnight.
Nothing thinks about you
All the time.
Nothing puts your interests
First. Nothing says:
“What would he want?”
“What would make her
Happy?”
From the beginning
Nothing was on your side.
Nothing cares for you
More than your own
Mother did.
Nothing loves you.
7. A Friend in Peril
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,”
She said.
I saw right
Then she was in trouble.
Once nothing gets
Inside you, it’s only
A matter of time
Before it’s sliding
Along, smooth
As the little zeros
Of blood cells slipping
Through your veins.
Before you know it,
Nothing has become
Indispensable.
You can’t imagine
Life without it.
Soon,
Nothing is everything to you.
8. How I Became Involved
Quite early on, I discovered
Noth
ing mattered to me.
I felt nothing was near
My heart, but also
Integral to the universe.
I felt nothing explained
All the big questions:
Suffering, the sudden
Appearance of flowering
Plants, the origin
Of the cosmos. Nothing
Answered all enigmas
With a calm equanimity
I myself hoped to learn.
I modeled myself on nothing.
Not just the nothing I held
Close to my heart, but
A social nothing also: if
Nothing had been clothes,
I would have worn nothing.
If nothing was food, I
Would have eaten nothing.
If nothing was a way of talking,
I would have said nothing.
Nothing seemed to me
The answer to everything.
I remember clearly the moment
This came to me: it was dusk
And I was walking my dog
On our quiet street,
And the next thing I knew
I’d fallen to my knees,
Weeping for the joy of at last
Having understood nothing.
9. Some Facts About It
Nothing rides a black
Stallion big as the stars.
Nothing lives in a silver
City.
Nothing makes a noise
Like wind in the pines.
10. My Own Conundrum
Many people believed I was committed
To nothing. They were wrong.
My allegiance was half-hearted
At best.
I felt nothing could get
Along without me, and at the same time
I knew that nothing needed
My total loyalty.
“Ambivalence,”
My doctor said.
“No,” I answered,
“A spiritual paradox that language
Aches to reveal.
Nothing
Wishes to show itself to us
And nothing stands in its way.”