Heart Song & Other Legacies
by Linda Buckmaster
The Illuminated Sea Press, 2006
33 pages, $11
Reviewed by Mary Ellen Geer
Not surprisingly for a writer who grew up in Florida and now lives on the coast of Maine, images of the sea and of water occur repeatedly in these poems, as in the beautiful poem that opens the book, “Sea Time”:
This is the place you were spawned--
the warm sea surface and the dark
below. Sleek tangle of kelp
fathoms deep and deeper still,
one-eyed creatures with antennae that blink.
You could have drifted
forever, in a gentle chaos, governed
only by currents and moon. But you
took that turn toward the hard shore.
the warm sea surface and the dark
below. Sleek tangle of kelp
fathoms deep and deeper still,
one-eyed creatures with antennae that blink.
You could have drifted
forever, in a gentle chaos, governed
only by currents and moon. But you
took that turn toward the hard shore.
Life on the “hard shore” has moments of both great pain and great beauty. Several of the poems are about the death of a beloved, prefigured in the poem “Memory, a snake” in which “the double-helix serpent lies ready/ to pounce, to strike, to sink/ its venom into soft tissue.” The death itself is portrayed vividly in “Sudden Death,” the moment when “you shorted out, caught fire, and/ bursting into white flames,/ consumed yourself/ in light and heat, leaving us/ the still warm ashes of an afterlife.” In the following poem, “January,” gentler but no less poignant, the poet mourns for the lost lover:
The other night, I saw you
as moonlight coming in
the west window of the kitchen.
Fourteen years in this house and I never
before saw the moon coming in that
particular window. Perhaps it's that we
never stayed up late. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Now
I'm often up very late, alone
so that night I saw you softly spreading
across the dark countertop and burnished surface
of the stove--a triangle of light--and
I lowered my face and kissed you.
as moonlight coming in
the west window of the kitchen.
Fourteen years in this house and I never
before saw the moon coming in that
particular window. Perhaps it's that we
never stayed up late. . .
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Now
I'm often up very late, alone
so that night I saw you softly spreading
across the dark countertop and burnished surface
of the stove--a triangle of light--and
I lowered my face and kissed you.
Other poems describe the poet’s experience with cancer, including “Initiation” and the moving catalogue poem “Nine Ways to Get to Bangor” in which the poet lists and numbers the waterways and plants and seasons of the Penobscot Bay area in counterpoint with lists of surgeries, hospitals, treatments, clinics, names of roads. The poem begins and concludes with the phrase “One watershed,” followed at the end by two lines: “Carry on./ Carry on.”
There is so much else in this short book, including two strong poems about the poet’s father and a poem about her son’s birth. Two lively poems describe the poet’s teenage and early adult years, although the tone of these is different from the rest of the book. What I like best about Buckmaster’s poetry is her continual identification with the natural world, her images of mystery and beauty in that world, as in the poem “Flowering” near the end of the book:
Pick a crevice
a homey gap
between stones
and make it
your own
. . . . . . . . . .
the bees will use you
for their sweet honey.
The rock will soften
under your touch. You
will draw moisture from
fog and hold it. Your
presence will
build soil.
Pick a crevice
a homey gap
between stones
and make it
your own
. . . . . . . . . .
the bees will use you
for their sweet honey.
The rock will soften
under your touch. You
will draw moisture from
fog and hold it. Your
presence will
build soil.
This is all
we have in this
life, all we own:
a flowering
an opening
a gap between
stones for tiny
tender roots.
we have in this
life, all we own:
a flowering
an opening
a gap between
stones for tiny
tender roots.
I found this chapbook in the poetry section one of my favorite independent bookstores, Longfellow Books in Portland, Maine. As they describe themselves on their website, they are “a fiercely independent community bookstore” that offers “parking, gift wrapping, advice, dog biscuits, and a wealth of knowledge about books.” It’s a unique pleasure to spend an hour or two browsing (and buying books) in this or any other independent bookstore. Sadly, these are hard times for bookstores. So I urge you to support your nearest independent bookstore--buy your books there and not online! Go to the readings and author events that they offer! Talk to the friendly and knowledgeable staff members! Without dedicated customers, these bookstores won’t survive. And the serendipity of coming across a good book that you weren’t expecting to find, like the one I’ve reviewed here, is something that can only happen while browsing in a bookstore, where the physical books are still sitting on the shelves, waiting for you to open them.
