Friday 4 January 2013

LAY BACK THE DARKNESS...


                                                            Lay back the darkness

My father in the night shuffling from room to room
on an obscure mission through the hallway.

Help me, spirits, to penetrate his dream
and ease his restless passage.

Lay back the darkness for a salesman
who could charm everything but the shadows,

an immigrant who stands on the threshold
of a vast night

without his walker or his cane
and cannot remember what he meant to say,

though his right arm is raised, as if in prophecy,
while his left shakes uselessly in warning.

My father in the night shuffling from room to room
is no longer a father or a husband or a son,

but a boy standing on the edge of a forest
listening to the distant cry of wolves,

to wild dogs,
to primitive wing beats shuddering in the treetops.


Lay Back the Darkness is Edward Hirsch’s sixth poetry collection. The themes of insomnia, survival, and art are introduced in this collection. Hirsch would revisit these themes in subsequent collections. It is obvious that the poet identifies with those who struggle to find purpose in living and who refuse to give up the fight to survive. Hirsch marvels at the resiliency of humans and recognizes how hard-won the idea of going on can be in the face of horrendous evil. 
Lay Back the Darkness ends with “The Hades Sonnets.” This sequence includes a cycle of ten sonnets. At the so-called midpoint of his life, Hirsch understands the need to come to terms with how death fits into the cycle of life, to appreciate both the light and the darkness.
The poet sets out to write heartfelt verse without pandering to cheap sentiment. In the title poem, Hirsch speaks of the tragedy that befell his elderly father, who suffered with Alzheimer’s disease. In the night he is shuffling from room to room on an obscure mission, He wants a nice sleep for his father but he is not able to help him out in anyway. The poet wants that his father being a salesman could charm everyone except the darkness of his life. His father is not able to remember anything what he meant to say. With such images as “My father in the night shuffling from room to room/ is no longer a father or a husband or a son,/ but a boy standing on the edge of a forest/ listening to the distant cry of wolves,/ to wild dogs,/ to primitive wingbeats shuddering in the treetops,” the poet expresses his frustration and anger at what has happened to his father.
“Lay Back the Darkness” can be looked at as an important transitional collection for Hirsch. The collection should stand as a foreshadowing of a new maturity that will serve him both as a man and most certainly as a poet.

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