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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