Kenneth Pobo

Binsey Poplars by Gerard Manley Hopkins (1879)

by on Mar 31, 2016
felled 1879
 
My aspens dear, whose airy cages quelled,
  Quelled or quenched in leaves the leaping sun,
  All felled, felled, are all felled;
    Of a fresh and following folded rank
                Not spared, not one
                That dandled a sandalled
         Shadow that swam or sank
On meadow & river & wind-wandering weed-winding bank.
 
  O if we but knew what we do
         When we delve or hew —
     Hack and rack the growing green!
          Since country is so tender
     To touch, her being só slender,
     That, like this sleek and seeing ball
     But a prick will make no eye at all,
     Where we, even where we mean
                 To mend her we end her,
            When we hew or delve:
After-comers cannot guess the beauty been.
  Ten or twelve, only ten or twelve
     Strokes of havoc unselve
           The sweet especial scene,
     Rural scene, a rural scene,
     Sweet especial rural scene.
 

///

“Binsey Poplars” is my favorite lyrical poem.  I discovered Hopkins in a Victorian literature class in college—40 years ago.  He has stayed with me since.  As a poet, I find what he can do with sound practically miraculous.  What a great ear!  And repetition!  The last two lines, so sad, so right, bring the poem together.  The poem touches me in part because I love trees—and I find the same peace among them that the speaker found.  Until, of course, they were felled, his “aspens dear.”  Clear cutting is a popular money-mad activity now, the tree roots more shallow than the bank roots.  I saw a favorite area by a lake we love—one year tree dense and lovely, the next year stumpy and it looked bombed out.  “All felled, felled, are all felled;….” Hopkins came to mind right away.

—Kenneth Pobo

 

—
Kenneth Pobo has a book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His recent work has been in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Floating Bridge, The Queer South (anthology), and elsewhere.

Eagle

by on Nov 13, 2015

While out on the boat we see an eagle
sliding over still water, hunting fish.
She flies with grace and skill: daring, regal.

The Wisconsin morning lolls, almost full-
y open, water lilies yellowish.
While out on the boat we see an eagle

glide.  Feathered lightning, she drops down to pull
up her late breakfast, a favorite dish.
She flies with grace and skill, daring, regal,

to the upper part of a pine, watchful—
a breeze stirs branches, some lazy reeds swish.
While out on the boat we see an eagle—

they had almost disappeared.  We’re grateful
enough survived, their journey not finished.
She flies with grace and skill: daring, regal.

Love, you look so relaxed, it’s wonderful.
We had hoped to see raptors, got our wish.
While out on the boat we see an eagle—
she flies with grace and skill: daring, regal.

 

—
Kenneth Pobo has a book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His recent work has been in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Floating Bridge, The Queer South (anthology), and elsewhere.

Mary at 60 Remembers 30

by on Apr 22, 2015

When I turned 30
my friends dumped me at a table
in a dark bar, ordered me a daiquiri.
I sat silently as they remembered
the old days—less than fifteen years ago.

When I got home, I broke
the bathroom mirror,
gathered the shards,
and watched a Dick Van Dyke Show rerun.
Laura Petrie would be cute
forever.  Joseph already preferred
PBS science specials to kissing.
Or did he?  I thought he did,
accused him of infidelity
which wasn’t true—

then.  Today I think about 30
and wonder why I got the glooms.
Life was good.  Or was it?
Memory has old scores to settle,
selects flavors that it craves,

leaves the rest.  I may make it to 90.
What will 60 feel like then?
The years speed up.  I’m walking
against traffic, no one slowing down.

 

—
Kenneth Pobo has a book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His recent work has been in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Floating Bridge, The Queer South (anthology), and elsewhere.

Mary at 30 Thinks about 60

by on Apr 21, 2015

Maybe Elton will give me grandchildren,
cute as ten-cent Cokes.  I’ll take them uptown
where the purple martin houses decay,
the diner where I met Grandpa Joseph
now a gun shop.

I won’t wear make-up,
not even lipstick.
If I’m called a frump,
so what?  We’re all frumps
after a certain age, men too.

I’ll ride my bike to garage sales,
buy cookbooks and trellises,
take a train trip across country,
New York to Seattle, have an affair
somewhere around Omaha,
nothing life-changing.

Don’t ask about Death.
I’ll cling to life like a dahlia
tied to a flagpole.  Unless
I’m sick.  Morphine and bed sores.
Mom died at 62.  It came fast,
like a stone dropping from a bridge.

60 seems far away.  A twig
dropping into the bird bath.

 

—
Kenneth Pobo has a book forthcoming from Blue Light Press called Bend Of Quiet. His recent work has been in: Weber: The Contemporary West, Floating Bridge, The Queer South (anthology), and elsewhere.