Bearing Witness

Today’s poem was sparked by a line from a poem by Patrick Lane: ‘I have wanted to bear witness to the past’. This often happens when I’m reading poetry, but it’s rare that I find myself writing around the inspiring line instead of out of it.

Mind you, what came first was simply six brief lines. More a fragment looking for a home. It took two years for me to finish working on this. At Banff, Don had recommended that I go back through my discards and look for the good lines, the ones that rang true. This sextet did, though it took a while, as you can see below, before I found its proper setting.

1st:
‘I have wanted to bear witness to the past’
Patrick Lane

You turn the corner and I can’t think why
it’s not the way home, but I’m afraid
to ask, reveal another empty space. It’s
not Alzheimer’s, just my head accustomed
to losing time, throwing an afternoon away the way
a child throws a tantrum, block after block.

2nd:
Reading Between the Lines

I never know how hands move, what quivers they see
in grass that urges them forward. The sounds I hear may not
disturb you. But I have wanted to bear witness
to the past. Sometimes, when you turn
the corner, I can’t remember why. I know
it’s not the way home, but I’m afraid to ask, reveal
another empty space. It’s not Alzheimer’s, just my head accustomed
to losing time, throwing an afternoon away the way
a child throws a tantrum, block after block. I’ve always loved
the big bang of fireworks, the way the gold chrysanthemums echo
in my breast bone. And those silver sizzlers. They light
the sky with a glory I keep forgetting.

For the draft above, I started writing about time (though admittedly, I wasn’t explicit about whose hands I was referring to in the first line). It was an easy fit at first to slip my sextet in, but by the end, I was pretty sure I’d gone astray. The connections I wanted to make were too tenuous to hold.

For the next draft, I expanded on the theme of time, so it became clearer to the reader what I was talking about. But I abandoned my expansion of the theme of electricity at the end. I still could not get that concept to work.

3rd:
Reading Between the Lines

I check my watch every few minutes in case time has leapt
without me, leaving me in its familiar ditch. I’ve missed
buses watching its face, not hearing the message
its hands wanted to convey. I never know how
those hands move, what quivers they see
in grass that urges them forward. Often I have wanted to bear witness
to the past* [Patrick Lane] Yet sometimes, when you turn
the corner, I can’t remember why. I know
it’s not the way home, but I’m afraid to ask, reveal
another empty space. It’s not Alzheimer’s, just my head accustomed
to losing time, throwing an afternoon away the way
a child throws a tantrum, block after block. I remember
the big bang of fireworks, the way gold chrysanthemums echo
in my breast bone. And those silver sizzlers. The ones that light
the sky with a glory that’s hard to forget. I know the sounds I hear
may not disturb you. Perhaps you don’t smell electricity
in the house’s hot rooms.

For the current draft, which has been before Don’s fierce expert eyes, I changed the voice. I’ve been doing this with many poems lately, noticing how much quiet power a poem gains when it has that displacement.

I also did a tight edit, deleting all wordy phrases (‘leaving me in its familiar ditch’) and slowing down the mood of my verbs (changing ‘leapt’ to ‘slipped’, ‘missed’ to ‘have passed’, ‘hearing’ to ‘spoke’) so that the poem is ready for the fog by the time we reach it. ‘Throws a tantrum’ is the only glimpse of rage in this poem and it provides an example of what’s spoken of in the second to last line.

Current Version:
Reading Between the Lines

You check your watch every few minutes knowing time
might have slipped without you. Buses have passed
while its face spoke quietly beneath your cuff. You’ve never seen
how its hands move, what quivers they sense
in grass that urge them forward. Often you have wanted
to bear witness to the past. Yet sometimes when the car turns
the corner, you can’t remember why. You know
it’s not the way home but you’re afraid to ask, reveal
another empty space. It’s not Alzheimer’s, just your head
accustomed to losing time, throwing an afternoon away
the way a child throws a tantrum, block after block. Today’s
fog is a palimpsest on the city’s surface, rewriting
the contents of windows, the kind of glimpses you sometimes
allow yourself to see. Fog makes a day lovely.

I’m still not totally convinced by the segue to the fog in this poem. We’ll see if it undergoes another revision.

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