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Good Letters

The spring equinox was on Monday. I am slowly seeing a flush of new life around me, like plum tree blossoms and nettles, while winter’s dank decay is still lamentably present. Christian Wiman’s haunting and tender poem “Love’s Last” from his collection Once in the West (originally published in Image issue 81) echoes loudly for me right now during this transition of seasons. Within his austere couplets, Wiman ponders the passage of time and recalls memories from his youth. The poem begins, “Love’s last urgency is earth / and grief is all gravity.” As a poet who battled an almost fatal illness, Wiman reminds us of the spiritual guidance we can receive from our own lives, from our past selves. The daring and curious child he once was, slashing at bee’s nests, shows Wiman how “mystery mastering fear” can illuminate the perpetual questions we carry. We are all able to start anew yet we are never that far from death and, in the in-between, may we all unearth a bit of hope and redemption.

—Jessica Gigot


“Love’s Last” By Christian Wiman

Love’s last urgency is earth
and grief is all gravity

and the long fall always
back to earliest hours

that exist nowhere
but in one’s brain.

From the hard-packed
pile of old-mown grass,

from boredom, from pain,
a boy’s random slash

unlocks a dark ardor
of angry bees

that link the trees
and block his way home.

I like to hold him holding me,
mystery mastering fear,

so young, standing unstung
under what survives of sky.

I learned too late how to live.
Child, teach me how to die.

 

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The Image archive is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.

Written by: Christian Wiman

Christian Wiman’s newest book of poems is Once in the West, published by Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. He teaches at the Yale Institute of Sacred Music.

1 Comment

  1. Bob Toohey on March 24, 2017 at 7:59 am

    Powerful reflection – the last couplet is devastating…because it rings so true.



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