into the distances of the personal...

from my anthology of must read (a)merican poems

James Wright

Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm
in Pine Island, Minnesota

Over my head, I see the bronze butterfly
Asleep on the black trunk,
Blowing like a leaf in green shadow.
Down the ravine behind the empty house,
The cowbells follow one another
Into the distances of the afternoon.
To my right,
In a field of sunlight between two pines,
The droppings of last year's horses
Blaze up into golden stones.
I lean back, as the evening darkens and comes on.
A chicken hawk floats over, looking for home.
I have wasted my life.

*

James Wright was a master of the easy, flowing image that refuses to retreat. There's a certain stubbornness in his poetry – a stubbornness that isn’t about refusal but is about a determination to change. Poems such as “A Blessing” or “Four Dead Sons” or “A Poem Written under an Archway in a Discontinued Railroad Station, Fargo, North Dakota” come to mind. These are poems grounded in experiences that lead to epiphany – a Wright characteristic, a thread that finds its way through his poetry. Wright challenges the reader, urges the reader into another place. “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota” is clearly a poem of experience and epiphany.

Each time I read these lines I’m fascinated by the specificity of the imagery: the sleeping butterfly, wings blowing against the black tree trunk, the empty house, the cowbells, the sunlight between pine trees, the horse droppings blazing. The place in this poem, a distinct presence, is, most importantly, real to the reader. Wright gives directions: “Over my head,” “Into the distances of the afternoon,” “To my right,” “I lean back,” “A chicken hawk floats over.” The writer's purpose is expressed in the chicken hawk's floating overhead – and note the hawk floats and doesn’t fly. The importance of that detail is that the bird appears in its flight after and before the need to flap the wings. There’s an ease to this awakening. Home is the focus of the hawk, the speaker in the poem, and the reader.

The poem ends with a line that, for me, is as impacting as any single line I’ve ever read – “I have wasted my life.” Butterfly, cows, horses, hawk, and trees are already at one with the poem’s topography. In contrast, the speaker has only in the moment of this hammock-setting come to the realization of a disconnection in life. In terms of the past, there is no home, but the moment has opened a new awareness of possibility. Nothing in life before this moment has moved the speaker, but Wright is careful not to blame the past.

This is a personal journey, and one that can only be entered in the personal – in the leaning back (a hint that the past is now viewed in a fresh way), in the gazing up out of self into a new place, a new geography – of emotions, insight, change. This new way is made apparent by movement: wind on the butterfly’s wings and the pines, the noise of the unseen cows, the sun’s reflection on horse droppings, the hawk’s flight, and the hammock’s swaying. Wright's imagery is compelling because of its subtle expression.

A poem with transformative powers – but only to the one who allows it to enter.