Vox Populi
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Susan Kelly-DeWitt: The Moon Is Doing The Australian Crawl
but down here the thoughts are
subaqueous
the branches of sycamores and elms float up
like kelp or eel grass and sea stars shine
in the memory currents
my mother has worked her way up
through the wave-rungs
of the spirit-corps’ fleshless ladder—
secretary of the afterworld
she reentered as grit
from the slopes
my brother sifted her in
inched his way down the steeps at Kaneohe
to disperse her
close as he could get
to surf-swell, to give her wind
and sea wings
Copyright 2021 Susan Kelly-DeWitt
Susan Kelly-DeWitt’s books include The Fortunate Islands (Marick, 2008).
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With her “subaqueous” imagery, Susan Kelly-DeWitt submerges us in a watery realm where we witness, indeed cannot escape, the touch of the “grit” which constitutes her late mother’s ashes, submitted to the deeps off Kaneohe–yet the mother’s living presence infuses this elegy with eerie reanimation, as the lunar orb, swimming past us, adds its tidal influence to the onward sea-swirl.
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Thank you, Thomas, for this lyrical and perceptive response.
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