Postcard
Earlier lying around the yard
We had just begun to feel being eaten
When Tyrus chanced
Upon the decomposing owl.
He held it up in the sun:
More beautiful than words! we agreed.
But this before us other two
Had embarked on that mundane but fatal errand—
The rusted station wagon pausing
Aside the sandy highway,
Its chancy crew,
The baby backseat moaning,
Our teeth gritting as Tyrus never knew,
And finally, when already having made the turn
Off Folly Road back into the neighborhood,
That half-smirk clipped instantly flat in the rearview
Suggesting sobriety
But meaning something rather opposite that.
By then the owl’s feet must’ve nearly finished baking.
Through the years they were the envy of all
Who chanced to pass,
Perched in eternity upon the parlor wall.
But as for luck they never proffered any,
Tyrus, alone, would sadly recall.
Earlier lying around the yard
We had just begun to feel being eaten
When Tyrus chanced
Upon the decomposing owl.
He held it up in the sun:
More beautiful than words! we agreed.
But this before us other two
Had embarked on that mundane but fatal errand—
The rusted station wagon pausing
Aside the sandy highway,
Its chancy crew,
The baby backseat moaning,
Our teeth gritting as Tyrus never knew,
And finally, when already having made the turn
Off Folly Road back into the neighborhood,
That half-smirk clipped instantly flat in the rearview
Suggesting sobriety
But meaning something rather opposite that.
By then the owl’s feet must’ve nearly finished baking.
Through the years they were the envy of all
Who chanced to pass,
Perched in eternity upon the parlor wall.
But as for luck they never proffered any,
Tyrus, alone, would sadly recall.
Earlier lying around the yard
We had just begun to feel being eaten
When Tyrus chanced
Upon the decomposing owl.
He held it up in the sun:
More beautiful than words! we agreed.
But this before us other two
Had embarked on that mundane but fatal errand—
The rusted station wagon pausing
Aside the sandy highway,
Its chancy crew,
The baby backseat moaning,
Our teeth gritting as Tyrus never knew,
And finally, when already having made the turn
Off Folly Road back into the neighborhood,
That half-smirk clipped instantly flat in the rearview
Suggesting sobriety
But meaning something rather opposite that.
By then the owl’s feet must’ve nearly finished baking.
Through the years they were the envy of all
Who chanced to pass,
Perched in eternity upon the parlor wall.
But as for luck they never proffered any,
Tyrus, alone, would sadly recall.
| Daniel Marsteller |
|
| levelheaded: Postcard Like most “postcards,” Daniel Marsteller’s presents a snapshot of a memorable place and attempts to transmit through words the predominately inexplicable experience of being there. From the outset though, the poem instructs us to expect more than banalities like “Having a great time. Wish you were here.” Take, for instance, the poem’s first line. In addition to informing the latter parts of the coherent sentence it helps create, the words “Earlier lying around the yard” lend themselves to possible interpretations that feed into our emotional and intellectual connection to the poem as a whole. On one hand, we can read the line as an assertion that the past (”earlier”) makes its bed in the present. At the same time, “lying” can be read as a verb meaning speaking untruths. When read this way, we gleam that the past ushers deceit into the present. Complicating things even further, the words “earlier lying” can also be read together to mean “previous falsehoods.” Confused? Us too. But wonderfully so. Confused the way we are by rainbows, not Rubik’s Cubes. As the poem progresses, its grammatically tight sentences engage our conscious brain as strange lines tell our unconscious they deserve more attention. The second line–”We had just begun to feel being eaten”–suggests that pain and/or being consumed ignite emotions. Words like “just” and “being,” which we breeze through as we keep up with the narrative, call upon larger notions of justice and existence when considered in the context of the individual line. Two lines later (We’re still on the first sentence, mind you!), the phrase “Upon the decomposing owl” disguises its relevance by fitting coherently into the narrative. “Upon” is a crazy word. As a preposition, it links two separate things. In the context of a poem that asks us to consider the past’s impact on the present and also contains a form of the word “chance” three times, this line gets even stranger. If defined by the symbolism of the words that follow it, “Upon”–that is, belief that any one thing is linked to another–is the death of wisdom. There is, of course, no way to prove beyond any doubt that this is what Marsteller means to tell us. But, in the exotic locale of this poem, where an errand can be “mundane but fatal” and “luck” is “never proffered,” the combination of words presented seems anything but random. - The Editors |
