Onondaga, Early December

This September marked the passing of one of my favorite poets, Hayden Carruth.  Among many honors and awards, Carruth was the winner of the Pulitzer prize and the National Book Award for his collection of poems called “Scrambled Eggs and Whiskey.”  He was also the poetry editor at Harpers.  Carruth wrote with cultural awareness, criticized political matters, and also vividly depicted over his sixty years-worth of writings, the people and places in Northern Vermont, where he lived for many years.  His style is infused with subtle rhythmes influenced by jazz and the blues.  Some of his most celebrated works are written about lonliness, insanity and death.  This poem, titled “Onondaga, Early December” is one of those.

Onondaga, Early December

lights in the twilight,
lights of Solvay over the expanse of frozen snow-covered
lake,
orange lights of the refineries,
yellow and green and red lights of the neon along the
strip,
lights as if undersea, the argon just coming to exist,
all lights in the cold moisture of the grounded wind
staggering across the lake at twilight
are blurred, are meaningless, they call, together,
with a sound unintelligible and of no interest;
but in the slate sky above the imagined horizon
like an old lantern left long ago on top of a heap of slag
the evening star alone is bright and clear
and alone responds to this knowledge of death too soon
that comes in the loneliness of twilight and dying wind,
the loneliness of decayed and useless and ragged fear
and the soundless cry for a thing that has no name. . . .

As the year begins to draw to a close, I can’t help but take comfort in the silence that the cold night brings.

Thanks to Joe Mezzanini for the photograph.

–Brooks