John Kinsella, "Swarm: The Sequel"
Poem published in John Kinsella's Poems 1980 - 1994 (Bloodaxe)
SWARM: THE SEQUEL
As the fumes of three
different blooms swirl
enticingly
about the mouth
of the hive
a bristling ball
of bees rolls
soprano & spitting
static electricity
into the first
sunlight
in weeks, the bio-
thermostat moving
from steely cold
to full throttle
in minutes.
There is a delicate
calm in our house.
And for the first year
out of three
we do not read portents
into this swarming.
Even our child
retains his confidence.
It's okay he says,
they just hover
over the orange blossom
& disperse.
_______________________________
There are many movements which are not synchronised with seasonal ones; there's a milieu in the air, and endless restratification, epistrata, conjunctions, "for the first year / out of three". In a memoir essay of childhood, Kinsella writes: "I've been making explosives. A friend wants to use them to demolish a beehive in a lightning-shattered tree down the road. I feel unsure. Later, I will add this incident to my reasons for becoming vegan. What I felt inside as he set the explosives that I'd manufactured. The swarm. The swarm symbolizes loss for me the communal drive against individuality, forced by crisis or need."
In 'Swarm: A Sequel', this loss has emptied out, or healed through release from an interior to a clear exterior, where it is immanent, and still, "delicate". The poem itself is clear & light, qualities found throughout Kinsella's work (in whatever style): rarely a simplistic clearness, never an unweighty lightness (possible if the mechanics of load-carrying are precise).
There is a "mouth"/"soprano" movement, and a "hive"/"house" double. The point at which sentences are cut into lines seems to swirl between three as the "three fumes": cuts which over-ride the line-ending to leave it as only a visual marker - "As the fumes of three / different blooms"; a chatty enjambment which catches at the pauses of speech - "the bio-/thermostat moving / from steely cold"; and an optimum line-cut working at optimum mystery, slicing through a phrase to give it momentum: "rolls / soprano" or "There is a delicate / calm in our house."
Catharsis is a common mood in Kinsella's short portrait or narrative poems. They speak from a calm, and their affects are of the lightest making, often generating the atmosphere where one or two details will light up. Is this why Kinsella was obsessed with the chilli? Its fire followed by numbed stilness. One of the chilli poems, 'Residue', the final lines are: "The seeds / are the hottest / part."
It's okay he says,
they just hover
over the orange blossom
& disperse.
Things lose their symbolic doubles, catharsis as a form of reading-being, "not reading portents".
© Melissa Flores-Bórquez 2006
SWARM: THE SEQUEL
As the fumes of three
different blooms swirl
enticingly
about the mouth
of the hive
a bristling ball
of bees rolls
soprano & spitting
static electricity
into the first
sunlight
in weeks, the bio-
thermostat moving
from steely cold
to full throttle
in minutes.
There is a delicate
calm in our house.
And for the first year
out of three
we do not read portents
into this swarming.
Even our child
retains his confidence.
It's okay he says,
they just hover
over the orange blossom
& disperse.
_______________________________
There are many movements which are not synchronised with seasonal ones; there's a milieu in the air, and endless restratification, epistrata, conjunctions, "for the first year / out of three". In a memoir essay of childhood, Kinsella writes: "I've been making explosives. A friend wants to use them to demolish a beehive in a lightning-shattered tree down the road. I feel unsure. Later, I will add this incident to my reasons for becoming vegan. What I felt inside as he set the explosives that I'd manufactured. The swarm. The swarm symbolizes loss for me the communal drive against individuality, forced by crisis or need."
In 'Swarm: A Sequel', this loss has emptied out, or healed through release from an interior to a clear exterior, where it is immanent, and still, "delicate". The poem itself is clear & light, qualities found throughout Kinsella's work (in whatever style): rarely a simplistic clearness, never an unweighty lightness (possible if the mechanics of load-carrying are precise).
There is a "mouth"/"soprano" movement, and a "hive"/"house" double. The point at which sentences are cut into lines seems to swirl between three as the "three fumes": cuts which over-ride the line-ending to leave it as only a visual marker - "As the fumes of three / different blooms"; a chatty enjambment which catches at the pauses of speech - "the bio-/thermostat moving / from steely cold"; and an optimum line-cut working at optimum mystery, slicing through a phrase to give it momentum: "rolls / soprano" or "There is a delicate / calm in our house."
Catharsis is a common mood in Kinsella's short portrait or narrative poems. They speak from a calm, and their affects are of the lightest making, often generating the atmosphere where one or two details will light up. Is this why Kinsella was obsessed with the chilli? Its fire followed by numbed stilness. One of the chilli poems, 'Residue', the final lines are: "The seeds / are the hottest / part."
It's okay he says,
they just hover
over the orange blossom
& disperse.
Things lose their symbolic doubles, catharsis as a form of reading-being, "not reading portents".
© Melissa Flores-Bórquez 2006
