For Transtromer

1945 –

2023

In the cold heavy rain, through
its poor lens, 
a woman
who might be a man
writes with a can of blue paint
large numbers
on the sides of beached whales—

even on the small one who is still
living, heaving 
there next to its darkening mother
where the very air is a turnstile…

I’m certain this woman is moved
as anyone would be—
her disciplines, 

a warranted gift to us,
to business, government
and our military,

and still she exhibits care and patience
this further 
talent for counting,

counting…

The author of numerous collections of poetry, Norman Dubie is the recipient of the Bess Hokin Prize and the 2012 PEN Center USA Literary Award for Poetry, as well as fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, among others.

Themes

About this Poem

"This poem began as a vivid dream of dead pilot whales, and its first drafts were meant to double for a friend, Spencer Hanvik, with whom I am completing an album of songs—though Spencer is responsible for the music and the tailoring of the verse into song lyrics. There’s a repository of some of this work at spencerhanvik.bandcamp.com."
—Norman Dubie

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Trombone

There were carols on the kitchen radio, a late
cold night, entering the room
while straightening the blistered Navajo rug, I
remembered suddenly what the first eight notes
of hark, the herald angels sing felt like
vibrating through my body that first time—
I was eleven and unprepared,
I remembered when I was ten
and fainting in church from the sweet ammonia of Easter lilies
hosing my nostrils with fragrance
and also the emptiness of it—the lord of the dance,
in an arc of agony, up on sticks…

Norman Dubie

2016

The Novel as Manuscript

                     —an ars poetica


I remember the death, in Russia,
of postage stamps 
like immense museum masterpieces
patchwork
wrapped in linen, tea stained,
with hemp for strapping...

these colored stamps designed for foreign places
were even printed during famine—
so when they vanished, so did the whole
Soviet system:
the Berlin Wall, tanks from Afghanistan
and Ceausescu's bride before a firing squad.

It had begun with the character of Yuri Zhivago
in a frozen wilderness, the summer house
of his dead in-laws, his 
pregnant mistress asleep
before the fireplace
with flam

Norman Dubie

2011

The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals

You were never told, Mother, how old Illya  was drunk
That last holiday, for five days and nights

He stumbled through Petersburg forming
A choir of mutes, he dressed them in pink ascension gowns

And, then, sold Father's Tirietz stallion so to rent
A hall for his Christmas recital: the audience

Was rowdy but Illya in his black robes turned on them
And gave them that look of his; the hall fell silent

And violently he threw his hair to the side and up
Went the baton, the recital ended exactly one hour

Later when Illya suddenly turned and bowed
And his mutes bowed, and what applause an

Norman Dubie

1983

Poems

For Transtromer

More by this poet

Trombone

The Novel as Manuscript

The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals

Poems

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For Transtromer

More by this poet

Trombone

The Novel as Manuscript

The Czar's Last Christmas Letter: A Barn in the Urals

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