leonardcohenforum.com

Anchorage
Perry Point VA Medical Center - Psychiatric Ward

I

The Susquehanna is bay-wide at this Point,
and barge deep on this placating November Chesapeake water;
it is the brown month when earth’s duty it is
to strip to a clarity the scowl of skulking death.

A barge, ferrying quarried stone, pushing a heave of water
out into the grey-blue-banked distance,
could be transformed into an idea
(a floating acorn, or a meniscus-held dragonfly)
-- ever a notion for canvas and frame;
but death, could never be an idea,
a metaphor to protect delicate sensibilities.

Season’s duty by the Susquehanna is the port of call
for exhausted geese, belly-flapping onto the water
by funeral leafy trees, announcing death;
but not of incense and black cloth,
nor of clay piled to the knees of a lonely mourner --
not this death...


II

At this Point, where river becomes bay and bay
invites the uncertainty of storm and the shift
of a Chesapeake tide, the mind may anchor,
seeking refuge from too many continuous defeats,
drift with water’s suppleness out to sea, may
become rage-gripped by knowledge, cold-sumped
with the certainty of death’s echo pounding on the tide.

Here, too, where water’s width greets the sky’s November grey,
the mind may lose its anchor, may wind wearily into chaos,
become a coven of demons clutching at the body,
prowl frenetic for a voice to taunt broodingly at death.

Yet, whatever woos the tide inholds the water;
whatever guides the flight of geese over river
wood and field permits also our demons to spit
defiance in to despair. There is the Bay,

there is the slow softly flow of river,
the geese in hectic scurry from a cloud-dooming sky;
and there is death gnawing at discarded bone
under a leafless tree, trembling
by bay-blue-wide Susquehanna’s
ever placating stillness.

Hello Jimmy

From your title, I thought you were going to be writing about Anchorage, Alaska, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that your topic is actually an area that is local to me, since I live in Baltimore and am familiar with the head of the Chesapeake Bay, around Havre de Grace and Perryville. I am also the author of a book on the War of 1812 on the Chesapeake Bay.

Your poem has a welcome majesty suitable to the topic.

I might quibble a bit about your opening statement that the Susquehanna "is bay-wide at this Point." In fact, the Chesapeake Bay, around 200 miles long, varies in width along its length. Certainly at a number of points the Bay is many miles wider than the width of the Susquehanna between Concord Point at Havre de Grace and Perry Point at Perryville so your contention that the river could be "bay-wide" is questionable. I suppose I will have to allow you the poetic license to open with that statement.

I very much like the brooding description that begins part II of the poem which I take it also relates to the Psychiatric Ward referenced in the subtitle:

At this Point, where river becomes bay and bay
invites the uncertainty of storm and the shift
of a Chesapeake tide, the mind may anchor,
seeking refuge from too many continuous defeats,
drift with water’s suppleness out to sea, may
become rage-gripped by knowledge, cold-sumped
with the certainty of death’s echo pounding on the tide.

Here, too, where water’s width greets the sky’s November grey,
the mind may lose its anchor, may wind wearily into chaos,
become a coven of demons clutching at the body,
prowl frenetic for a voice to taunt broodingly at death. . . .

In all, Jimmy, this is an interesting and engaging treatment of the theme of nature and psychology. Since I note that you are in Ireland I wonder how you came to write on this particular area, whether you have visited here, etc.

Chris

I take your point Christopher that the Susquehanna takes another few miles to enter its "bay-wide" state. But I suppose I was seeing it from an Irish perspective... to me it is bay-wide compared to rivers on this side of the "pond".

I worked in the VA hospital on that particular ward. It was part of my internship when I was studying in Loyola College Maryland. I lived ib baltimore, Towson, to be more precise, for a number of years before returning to the Emerald Isle.

Thanks for your comments.
Jimmy

Hi Jimmy

Thanks for the back story on this poem, Jimmy. I am a graduate of Loyola College as well.

Chris