Memorial

Two poems by Yusef Komunyakaa. The first one appears at the end of “Love in the Time of War” from Warhorses (2008). “Facing It” is from Dien Cai Dau (1988).

His name is called. A son’s lost voice
hovers near a fishing hole in August.
His name is called. A lover’s hand
disturbs a breath of summer cloth.
His name is called a third time,
but his propped-up boots & helmet
refuse to answer. The photo remains silent,
& his name hangs in the high rafters.

She tenderly hugs the pillow,
whispering his name. The dog
rises beside the bedroom door
& wanders to the front door,
& stands with its head cocked,
listening for a name in a dead language.

* * * * *

Facing It

My black face fades,
hiding inside the black granite.
I said I wouldn't,
dammit: No tears.
I'm stone. I'm flesh.
My clouded reflection eyes me
like a bird of prey, the profile of night
slanted against morning. I turn
this way--the stone lets me go.
I turn that way--I'm inside
the Vietnam Veterans Memorial
again, depending on the light
to make a difference.
I go down the 58,022 names,
half-expecting to find
my own in letters like smoke.
I touch the name Andrew Johnson;
I see the booby trap's white flash.
Names shimmer on a woman's blouse
but when she walks away
the names stay on the wall.
Brushstrokes flash, a red bird's
wings cutting across my stare.
The sky. A plane in the sky.
A white vet's image floats
closer to me, then his pale eyes
look through mine. I'm a window.
He's lost his right arm
inside the stone. In the black mirror
a woman's trying to erase names:
No, she's brushing a boy's hair.

The Ear is a Great Editor

“I think about how things are constructed. My great grandfather was a carpenter, my father was a carpenter, and I’ve been thinking, recently, if that informed my process. Because I think about how things solidify and become heft and at the same time lightness. And so language is important to me, music is important to me. Language is our very first music and the body is an amplifier, so I think in that way. I read everything aloud as I’m writing a poem and anything that’s extraneous, I try to cut away. My method is to improvise. You have everything come flowing down and then cut it back to its necessary components…

It depends on what word falls left or right of a given word to, in a way, shape the music of the word in the center…I think reading it aloud, the ear is a great editor. The ear keeps me true to the language. The poem is a made thing in that sense. It’s a made thing, in a way, approaches mystery.”

~ Yusef Komunyakaa, speaking with Michael Silverblatt of KCRW’s Bookworm (April 30, 2009)

 

Distilled Insinuation

We Never Know
by Yusef Komunyakaa, from Dien Cai Dau

He danced with tall grass
for a moment, like he was swaying
with a woman. Our gun barrels
glowed white-hot.
When I got to him,
a blue halo
of flies had already claimed him.
I pulled the crumbled photograph
from his fingers.
There's no other way
to say this: I fell in love.
The morning cleared again,
except for a distant mortar
& somewhere choppers taking off.
I slid the wallet into his pocket
& turned him over, so he wouldn't be
kissing the ground.

*     *     *     *     *

"Poetry is a kind of distilled insinuation. It's a way of expanding and talking around an idea or a question. Sometimes, more actually gets said through such a technique than a full frontal assault."

~ Yusef Komunyakaa