‘And So a Light’
— Joyce Chong
You are not to blame. You garden
children in your blood. If home were a place, then suffering.
There is so much to admire in brevity, in moments of pain and loss isolated on the page and made into something greater; an expanded snapshot. Time dilation. The recurring imagery of birds, of tissue and muscle and matter, of things that are concrete, active biology is juxtaposed with the unstated. This poem is concerned not with plain facts, the hard edges of reality, but with peering into the blurred boundaries. Illustrating time obliquely.
There is a nurse to my left—palm on the knee—
theory at the tongue.
The imagery of bird bone and marrow evoke lightness, the suggestion of flight. The risk of animal taking off at any moment. The tendency of bone to re-seal itself, shut closed fractures. What’s coarse, what’s sealed off.
Hughes’ language steps lightly, interweaves imagery and unexpected wording to create a sense of stillness and reflection. A letter without an addressee, a photograph without a camera.