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Our prompt for this call for submissions is Jane Kenyon’s poem “Three Songs at the End of Summer” features three portraits of late summer.
For our August issue, we asked for poems that use her title as a starting place. Not poems about summer, but about endings. Your title should be "Three ______ at the End of ________." For example, you might write "Three Scenes at the End of an Affair," or "Three Haiku at the End of Life." You might write three stanzas or three short poems, three sections or even "Three Lines at the End of Day."
I do like how Jane's poem's three parts are connected and also distinct in their sounds, moods, and atmosphere. Her second section consists of two three-line stanzas. The third section ends with lines that move us toward autumn, which is a gentle transition and brings the poet into the poem.
I had the new books—words, numbers,
and operations with numbers I did not
comprehend—and crayons, unspoiled
by use, in a blue canvas satchel
with red leather straps.
Jane Kenyon (1947–1995) was an acclaimed American poet and translator known for her luminous, spare, and emotionally resonant verse. Her life and work deeply chronicled her lifelong struggle with clinical depression, her spiritual faith, and the quiet beauty of rural New England.
She was married to poet Donald Hall. Following their marriage in 1972, the couple relocated to Hall's family home Eagle Pond Farm in Wilmot, New Hampshire. That location provided the natural imagery for much of her writing.
Her poetry includes From Room to Room (1978), The Boat of Quiet Hours (1986), Let Evening Come (1990) and Constance (1993). All four books are included in her Collected Poems.
THREE THOUGHTS AT THE END OF OUR LIVES
We have learned in love together
Through 38 years of days linked by moments in time.
You retired early so most of my memories brim with images of you.
How then will I manage, left alone to rummage through
Empty echoing rooms in a house we shared?
I can barely believe you are leaving,
You appear excited to embrace a life of new possibilities at age 92,
While I face exhaustion after five years as your caregiver.
I scrabble to gather bits of my dilapidated energy
Like a butterfly caught with half a wing to wonder where I lost my own life?
Can you outlive me in some odd way
Despite age and illness?
A retirement home may not appear to carry the source of a vibrant future
They promise a new community will surround you with friends and activities.
Someone else will cook your dinners
Someone else will clean your room, make the bed, sort your pills
New challengers will join your chess games
You will live in a room of your own--other women may take my place.
Like a flower, your bud can thrive,
While for the first time, at age 80, I will live alone
Petals on my bud may droop and fall like a waterfall,
Or will my newly vacated hours gift me with time to know myself?
Without you I may discover I am different from what I was with you.
THREE SOUNDS AT THE END OF THE WORLD
Elliot had just two -
bangs and whimpers -
and he favoured whimpers,
just one long whimper.
But perhaps the whimper(s) came first,
not one but many.
Or perhaps they’re already here,
have been here for a long time
as we live,
happily or not,
through the ending of time.
All together now.
Then there’s his discounted bang
and there are many of those,
as states seek to defend themselves
from each other.
And each is bang bigger than the last
as bang production grows
in perpetual popularity.
All together now.
But he forgot the scream(s),
surely a necessary third.
Listen.
The (temporary) survivors are screaming,
the children, the old and the young
united in their humanity
but screaming
like the cats
screaming and scrounging
smart survivors,
like the gulls overhead,
(the silent fish are long gone),
just three screaming survivors at the end.
Just three loud sounds.
And, as Becket might have said,
there’s no cure
for being
there
at the ending of the Earth.
All together now.
Lynn White
THREE QUESTIONS AT THE END OF THE WAR
Our homes were sandcastles
crumbled
not by savage storms
or careless beachgoers
but bomb barrages
unpredictable
as dreams.
Should we rebuild
or begin again
in an unknown land?
*
To our children,
death
was not a game on a tiny screen:
it was real
and ceaseless
as the passage of time.
What scars did it leave
on their changeable brains,
on their tender hearts?
*
And now that peace
has swept into our lives
like a bracing breeze
on a sweltering day,
will our hatred
abate?
Susan Spaeth Cherry
3 HAIKU AT THE END OF MY LAST LETTER TO YOU
envelope unopened all week
teacup ring on my address
scent of your cigarettes lingers
news comes by text
summer flowers on my table
your letter burns
tomorrow bathing in the salt water
watery full moon beside me
you were Atlantic, I am Pacific
Lianna Wright
THREE SCENES AT THE END OF LAST MONDAY
I watched a rat, envious of its
speed and balance, as it moved
along the top of a fence.
Then its graceful leap
onto the ground,
as smooth a landing as an
Olympic diver’s splash-free entry.
As it picked up its pace
coming at me, it stared at me
as I stared at it.
The mourning doves started building
a nest under an eave at one end of
the garage, but moved it, twig by twig,
to the other end and onto a platform
I had built for them after last year's
fledglings left. A hawk noticed
and feathers amassed below.
The westerly view from where
I spend early summer evenings
thinking about things
mundane and enormous
hosts the sun’s descent
through lilac and orange clouds.
There are no sounds except for
the giggling of little children.
Rob Friedman
THREE SIGHTS AT THE END OF A SEIZURE
“It [epilepsy] appears to me to be no more divine nor more sacred than other diseases but has a natural cause … like other affections. Men regard its nature and cause as divine from ignorance.”
from On the Sacred Disease, Hippocrates
I. Aurora Borealis
Once jerking, pulsating, quivering limbs abated, flashing
lights ceased…when eyes rolled backwards, nostrils flared,
teeth ground together and filleted my bleeding tongue,
human apparitions appeared through anxious, electric auras
more frightened than I, disquieted as they viewed my miserable shroud
with pity, helplessness, bewilderment, prime mover guilt.
II. Valkyrie Flight
Psychomotor energy in both mind and body permeated
my essence following the grand mal seizure’s release;
I whimpered, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” “I’m sorry!” Yet
confused apologies sound like protests, convulsive ends created
new beginnings where my most recent genesis recycled abrasions,
stiff bones and sinews, physical fatigue, and personal self-loathing,
III. Twilight of the Gods
Cautious, concerned hands pushed me back into feather cushions
as I resisted restraints, attempted to rise and flee lingering demons
whose fingertips tortured my contracting anatomical features
that terrified both family and familiars unschooled in tonic-clonic
episodes or ecstatic seizures, people who’d never look at me the same,
speculating on the frequency of my neurological nightmares.
THREE KISSES AT THE END OF GOODBYE
happy memories
three kisses saying goodbye
to a life well lived
Mary Bone
THREE WALKS AT THE END OF BLOOMING
Of all the flowers, only wild carrot
and star-thistle still show color.
Hardly anyone walks here at midday
under sun and motionless shade.
Buckeye has given up on Summer,
its leaves brown, brittle as a Cassandra
warning of Fall. Old man, bespectacled,
stops in the middle of the trail,
looking down as if lost in his phone.
Today, even Queen Anne’s Lace resigns
its umbels, curling them into tiny
bird-nests, pale green as hope for Spring.
THREE TANKA AT THE END OF AUGUST
In the summer dawn,
Venus glitters over the
Black waves before the
Red light claims the sky. For a
Moment, this darkness is ours.
A turtle climbs out
Of the koi pond to sun
On a warm green stone.
As August ends, we also
Long for sweet green solitude.
A soft mist floats in
On the warm wind, lifting white
Butterflies skyward.
Soon summer will surrender
As the first acorn lets go.
Rose Anna Higashi
THREE CARDS AT THE END OF MY TAROT READING
for Robert Bly
The Catalyst
For years I held fast to the cold iron anchor,
dragging it through the damp leaves of autumn
a dark owl inside me with eyes shut,
sure that night would collapse if it dared to fly.
The Crucible
Today, at the edge of the clearing, I unlace my fingers.
sending them into the black earth beneath the moss.
I step over a fallen trunk, listening to the sound -
water moving somewhere underneath the stones.
The Synthesis
A long way off, the hill rises into grey light.
The owl opens its wings and glides
soundlessly over the snowfields and morning
coming forward, ready to carry whatever remains.
Charles Michaels
THREE WALKS AT THE END OF THE DAY
The last to leave the bed
Our family bed in the morning
The only “child” to do so
Invited to do so
Okay, encouraged to do so
I show him his steps
Yes, he has steps
And coax him down
Come on let’s go
I jingle his leash and collar
And wait for him in the hallway
As he shakes, stretches
And surveys the floor for crumbs
then takes a drink of water
Before wagging his way over to me
His afternoon walk
Is usually short
Unless
not all his business was accomplished earlier
Then he’s a dog with a mission
Unless he’s not
Then
he’s a meandering connoisseur
who likes to stop and smell the bushes, trees, lampposts
And of course, the highly fragrant and much sought after fire hydrant
I give him his time because
It’s his walk
It’s early evening
We head back out for, as my husband calls it, “a quick squirt”
The building has planted several new bushes
I try my best to lead him elsewhere
lest he be responsible for their demise
as befell their predecessors
but alas he insists (because beagles don’t budge)
On introducing himself to the newcomers
I can only hope he’s fortifying them
with bypassed nutrients
In preparation for a harsh winter
I glance around for cameras
And neighbors
And make a mental note to Google that
Terri J. Guttilla
THREE MONOKU AT THE END OF A MARRIAGE
words after apology after words
divorce papers signing my new lease
parenting plan thunderstorms every friday
Leslayann Schecterson
THREE TASKS AT THE END OF A PARTY
First, you package up the trash
the crumpled cans, discarded paper plates
food, left out too long to safely eat
Break down the large white tent,
The linen draped, round tables
Fold up the chairs and load them
In the pickup
Box up the white and purple decorations
Her high school yearbook, cap and gown
The stack of cards containing cash
Photos of her — spanning pram to prom
Next, you organize —
all those things she’ll leave behind
when, in four short weeks, she’ll
disappear — spend a year abroad
Before deciding where to go to college
Will you enshrine her room till then —
Or let her brothers use it as a playroom?
Will her softball glove, abandoned dolls
and skis be comforts or elicit tears?
~
The task you will postpone is to reflect
On all you did or did not do for her
Those years you felt would never end
But did — on one hot summer afternoon
Frank Kelly