{"id":1989,"date":"2020-01-27T18:29:48","date_gmt":"2020-01-27T23:29:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/?p=1989"},"modified":"2020-02-16T14:08:51","modified_gmt":"2020-02-16T19:08:51","slug":"brasfield_poems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/2020\/01\/27\/brasfield_poems\/","title":{"rendered":"A Series of Poems: Referendum, Past Cars Speed Fast, and Hermitage"},"content":{"rendered":"

By James Brasfield<\/strong><\/p>\n

From the Author<\/strong><\/h4>\n

For a number of summers before moving to Belfast, Maine, in 2018, I commuted from central Pennsylvania to Penobscot\u2019s Morse Cove, a quintessential Maine cove with its nesting ospreys and a family of red foxes that foraged the shore among the stones and shells at low tide.<\/p>\n

I was in Galway, Ireland, staying near a cove, when the first Irish referendum on The Treaty of Nice, which included ratification of the Kyoto Protocol, was defeated. The second Irish referendum was passed. Yet, in 2001 George W. Bush withdrew the U.S. from the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, brokered by Al Gore and by then ratified by 140 countries. In 2017, I had recently returned from Belfast, Maine when Donald Trump withdrew the U.S. from The Paris Agreement on climate change brokered by Barack Obama and ratified (to date) by 187 parties. Both agreements were opposed by U.S. business interests. Whether one lives in Galway, Ireland or Belfast, Maine, or as far east as Tartu, Estonia, the far reach of The Treaty of Nice, each of us faces the ongoing sacrifice of the planet for excess profits.<\/p>\n

To borrow from James Joyce\u2019s Leopold Bloom (an \u201ceveryman\u201d and lay scientist), we might say the contributive significance of the U.S. withdrawal from the world\u2019s two major climate agreements is \u201cpreindicative of the result\u201d: the growing intensity of severe climate conditions affecting the earth and thus all life on earth, as we experience now \u201cactual loss by failure to interpret the total sum of possible losses.\u201d<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

REFERENDUM<\/strong><\/h3>\n

[Defeated, the 1st Irish Referendum on The Treaty of Nice to expand<\/em>
\nthe E.U. was opposed by U.S. interests fearful of competition and the<\/em>
\nratification of an international court and the Kyoto Protocol on Climate<\/em>
\nChange (2nd Referendum ratified).]<\/em><\/p>\n

A swift glides, banks between
\nthe road along the suburbs and tree line
\nalong the canal. Sunlight filters through
\ndarkening clouds, through June leaves in wind
\nover wildflowers between the free flowing
\nand encroachment of mind to build
\na place for aluminum leaves.<\/p>\n

Toward the River Corrib, gulls fly east
\nbelow lads in their jet, who must defeat Estonia
\nto reach the World Cup in Seoul,
\nwho won\u2019t keep a meadow wild,
\nwhether here, or Tartu
\nwhere I might stand and share with an Estonian
\na language originating in a meadow<\/p>\n

and reaching out. Wingbeats,
\nthen wings rigid, from high up comes
\nthe unmistakable scream in wind wresting
\na nest from a copper beech, and the swift
\nwill make with feathers, dry grass and saliva
\na nest again in a crevice of stones. Few
\nknow swift from sparrow in my country.<\/p>\n

And my heart nearly breaks
\nwhen from our universities
\na man steps into a meadow, sees only
\na parking lot, its shopping center.
\nHe stands against the agreement
\nproposed to keep alive
\nthe haunts of birds. Sad too<\/p>\n

to think of an Irishman,
\nhis bulldozer at the extent \u2013 a canal
\nto harbor his factory. He moves
\nagainst my friend from Estonia,
\nstaring east across the River Emaj\u00f5gi.
\nthough I know no one there, there
\nwe are two people in a meadow.<\/p>\n

Here perched on a telephone wire
\nlobed from Tartu, a sparrow hawk eyes the grassland.
\nLike those inheritors from the fourteen tribes
\nwho preserved in a shopping mall a remnant
\nof the Galway wall, he neither signs
\na treaty, nor understands
\nthe value of his meadow.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

PAST CARS SPEED FAST<\/strong><\/h3>\n

It is long past, now, long past
\nand dusk there beginning to fall,
\na distant car changing lanes
\nat something on the road.<\/p>\n

I veer to the passing lane \u2013
\nthe dark hazard fast becoming
\nthe deer having stepped
\nfrom the forest\u2019s edge . . .<\/p>\n

All is passing fast \u2013
\nmy car, its vibrations
\nand sound of wind on the road
\nclosing in on the deer<\/p>\n

stretching, twisting her head
\nto leap out of the way,
\nand stock-still the body not rising,
\nand she born in deep woods,<\/p>\n

head free from the womb, hooves
\ntogether, as if diving, placenta
\nto existence, her long back legs
\nimmobile till her life landed,<\/p>\n

her neck raised from the shadowed floor,
\nround her the scent of the fresh world,
\nshe now on a swath of four lanes,
\nfleeing that part of her a corpse already . . .<\/p>\n

From insect-spattered windshield
\nto rearview mirror, the deer a vision:
\nalways the what-has-happened
\nunfolding from the future, as I speed past.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

HERMITAGE<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My footsteps had nearly faded when
\nthe sandfilled conch,
\nhaving drifted to the mouth of the river,
\nwas safe in hand,<\/p>\n

not to be pulled back, to drift
\nyear in and year out,
\nto be broken, to
\nbecome ribs of a dune \u2013<\/p>\n

the shell emptied there of all
\nbut inherited sound,
\nprimal its spiraled origins,
\nand, in this, a hermitage<\/p>\n

again to return to on bare feet
\nacross the floor, for the lost
\njoy alive where nothing
\nnow would be as it was.<\/p>\n

__________________________________________________________________________<\/p>\n

91¸£Àû the Author<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

James Brasfield\u2019s third collection of poems, Cove, is expected from LSU Press in 2022. His previous collections are Infinite Altars (LSU, 2016) and Ledger of Crossroads (LSU, 2009). Twice a Senior Fulbright Fellow to Ukraine, he\u2019s received fellowships in poetry from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts and is a recipient of the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By James Brasfield From the Author For a number of summers before moving to Belfast, Maine, in 2018, I commuted from central Pennsylvania to Penobscot\u2019s Morse Cove, a quintessential Maine cove with its nesting ospreys and a family of red foxes that foraged the shore among the stones and shells at low tide. I was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1650,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1989","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-spire-2020-issue"],"yoast_head":"\nA Series of Poems: Referendum, Past Cars Speed Fast, and Hermitage - The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability - University of Maine<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/spire\/2020\/01\/27\/brasfield_poems\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Series of Poems: Referendum, Past Cars Speed Fast, and Hermitage - The Maine Journal of Conservation and Sustainability - University of Maine\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By James Brasfield From the Author For a number of summers before moving to Belfast, Maine, in 2018, I commuted from central Pennsylvania to Penobscot\u2019s Morse Cove, a quintessential Maine cove with its nesting ospreys and a family of red foxes that foraged the shore among the stones and shells at low tide. 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