Silver Tears and Time
by Sharmagne Leland-St. John
2006, Quill and Parchment Press
48 pages, $14.95, direct from publisher (bookstore
locations listed below)
Review by David Matthews
Silver Tears and Time is an apt title for this collection of
poems that turn so often on the passage of time, varieties of loss,
and the power of memory to sustain us in our living.
The opening poem, "Wild Dark Love Song," is dedicated to Richard
Sylbert, who died in 2002. The poet's loss is depicted in images of
stark landscape, autumn, winter. She imagines her husband has "gone
to live in jagged mountains," gone to dwell
In the shadow of the Cader Idris
In misty mountains,
Where meadowlarks are known to wing,
And wild geese fly,
Across the winter sky.
Yet there is not a trace of self-pity, nor denial that he is gone,
his death real, as Leland-St. John weaves from memory and loss poems
and songs that feed her spirit — and ours. "He's gone from her
forever / This wild dark love song."
"Windy City 2003," also a remembrance of Richard Sylbert, shows a
poet as much at home in urban settings as in the wild. Here the
sense of loss is even more palpable, "the windy city has lost its
breath / and soul without you here," as she remembers the streets
they used to wander, their old stomping grounds that in his absence
have lost their magic spell:
the art galleries echo
but it's your voice I long to hear
explaining all the paintings and sculptures
now empty and alone
memories etched on canvas carved in stone
Finally, the memory is not of the city but of the loved one, "your
memory etched in the marrow of my bone." With memory may come the
pain of loss, but with it comes too a greater richness, for having
known and loved this person, a richness that will always be as much
part of who the poet is as the marrow of her bone.
Poems dedicated to cultural icons (George Harrison, Janis Joplin)
place Leland-St. John's coming of age with the generation of the
1960s. The opening lines of "Desert Nights," for George Harrison,
"PBS Reno / just played / the Concert for George," establish the
poem's setting. Stepping outdoors, where the moon is bright, she
finds that the brisk night, with the crunch of ice beneath her feet,
calls up memory of "a bundled up childhood / of sledding / down
white hillocks / in a small Eastern town / so far away in time and
memory."
The poet is struck by the conjunction of art, artifice, human
creation, and nature. The night sky above this high desert plain and
George Harrison's music together deliver a sense of connection to a
greater whole that exists independently of subjective consciousness.
To see the night sky
in all its glory,
and to hear George Harrison's music
lilt across this high desert plain,
is breathtaking.
And to know glaciers were right here
long ago.
This was the very edge of them,
for a while.
A strong connection is growing.
Sitar strings sing
and reverberate
in this desert night,
his music still flowing.
"On the River Boat That Day" tells of lovers who drifted apart. The
poet remembers a time when "'you' and 'me' was still 'we.'" The
images are light and airy, "that day / with the sun / behind your
fair hair / like a halo." It did not last. The lovers have gone
their separate ways. Still, she is reminded
of your halo hair
and the smile
you wore
on the river boat
that day
as we drifted
so far apart
Memories of love past and lost — here and in poems about the poet's
father, affairs that did not last, friends and lovers who have gone
their separate ways — may be bittersweet, but never bitter. Even in
loss these memories serve to sustain, never diminish..
Silver Tears and Time closes not with a poem but with a
short, prose anecdote titled "My Buddha Garden." Leland-St. John
tells of finding her mother's porcelain Buddha on her brother's
patio after he died. She took the Buddha to the house she and her
husband bought on the Stillaguamish River, where they planned to
retire, and placed it on the deck along with pots and Tupperware,
anything that would hold potting soil and the seeds she brought with
her from the Pacific Northwest and her home in Southern California.
The rains came, and the tiny seeds began to sprout. The herbs began
to bloom and flower, and my deck came to be called "My Buddha
Garden." Now there are small terra cotta flowerpots all along the
railings, overflowing with columbines, and cosmos and Canterbury
bells, and nasturtiums and geraniums....
I thank my mother for this belated gift and for the joy she always
brought me. Then I relax, in her white wicker chair, with the rose
chintz cushions, at my glass-topped table, and feel her spirit all
around me, as the bees hum and the river sings.
The poems of Silver Tears and Time pull no punches about the
loss that is so much a part of life, and for that these poems are
all the stronger in their affirmation of life, bearing witness to
the capacity of memory and memento — and art — to enrich our world
and nourish our spirits.
Available through the following Bookstores:
Book Soup
8810 Sunset Blvd.
W. Hollywood, CA
310 659-3110
Book Soup, Sunset Strip, Los Angeles, California
Village Books
1049 Swarthmore Ave
Pacific Palisades, CA 90272
(310) 454-4063
palivillagebooks.com - Home
Delaware Trading Post
3479 Maggie Hoag Road
DeLancey NY 13752
Phone: 845-676-3313
Delaware Trading Post
Purchase from bookstores for $12.00 - $14.00
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