Vox Populi
A curated webspace for Poetry, Politics, and Nature with over 20,000 daily subscribers and over 8,000 archived posts.
Betsy Sholl: Liminal
Not husband now, not marriage, not even
the phantom of his arms. Then what?
In Wings of Desire, as if there’s no crossing
between realms, the invisible angels
go unfelt by the people they press against,
whose sorrow and wounds they absorb.
But once, messenger or man, someone
or thing absorbed my exhaustion,
took my arm so I would keep running,
sang to me the whole sweltering three miles,
said his job was to come in last in every race,
said he’d been running longer than all of us
combined. Then at the finish line—gone.
I didn’t make this up.
In Dante, some stanzas so blaze with light,
reading them, you feel your pupils constrict.
It’s like walking along the shore, ocean
flashing on your left, sun straight ahead
flooding your eyes, dissolving your thoughts,
so you stop reaching for sea glass and shells,
forget the wet sand tugging at your feet,
and just walk toward that splendor, half dreaming
one day it won’t fade, you’ll be scoured by light,
so welcomed, so drawn into it
everything else falls away—oh my Love,
my sweet radiant Love.
~~~~
Copyright 2024 Betsy Sholl
Betsy Sholl was poet laureate of Maine from 2006 to 2011 and has authored nine collections of poetry. Sholl has received several poetry awards, including the 1991 AWP Award, and the 2015 Maine Literary Award, as well as receiving fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Maine Arts Commission. Sholl’s poetry has been published in anthologies and in literary journals including Orion Magazine, Field, TriQuarterly, The Kenyon Review, The Massachusetts Review, and Ploughshares. Sholl was one the founding members of Alice James Books, a non-profit publishing house at the University of Maine at Farmington, established in 1973 with the intent of widening women’s access to publishing.
Discover more from Vox Populi
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
What a beautiful and radiant poem!
LikeLike
Oh, dare Betsy, how can something so heartbreaking simultaneously fill me with gratitude you gave to your husband but to the world? The poem is simply invaluable. Love, S
LikeLike
Such a heart breaking/mending tribute to all that resides amidst liminal space… In body, mind, and spirit.
Thank you for this window into the masterful instrumentation of how poetry bridges the gap between tether and release.
I’m so grateful that you share the ways you make sense of loss and the accompanying 5th limb of grief that comes in its wake, Mom. I love you.
LikeLike
Betsy, You’re the Best! Glad to see your work keeps on and on!
LikeLike
Thank you, Betsy Sholl. Yes, I am often walking toward that splendor and so that’s what it’s called then. Great.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thanks, Owen. I love your essay on Legibility on your blog. Brilliant work bringing together different disciplines.
LikeLike
Thank you! This is so satisfying and numinous.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isn’t it? I love Betsy’s poems.
>
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you all so much for commenting. I really am grateful
LikeLiked by 1 person
“not even
the phantom of his arms“
LikeLiked by 3 people
How seamlessly this poem moves & flows to its “radiant” & “blazing” closure! Beautiful!
LikeLiked by 3 people
I agree! M.
>
LikeLiked by 2 people
A healing poem. It reminds me of Dante’s passion for his childhood friend Beatrice, who died young, and who became his muse and angel throughout life. She leads Dante into Paradise in the Divine Comedy, if I recall.
As someone like most of us who have deeply grieved, I find the poem offers a pathway, or a literary companionship, as we walk towards light; and like Beatrice for Dante, offers long transcendent love that can outlast sorrow. Liminal in its effects on me.
LikeLiked by 3 people
Beautiful, Jim. Thank you for sharing.
>
LikeLiked by 2 people
What a radiant poem, will be reading and rereading this…thank you!
LikeLiked by 3 people
I love this poem too.
LikeLiked by 2 people
A wonderful poem, Betsy, thank you. Your lines about reading Dante took me back to my senior year in college, reading The Paradiso at 3 in the morning, prepping for the final. I still remember being so blown away by the beauty of it that the pressure of studying fell away and I just sat there in awe of it.
“In Dante, some stanzas so blaze with light,
reading them, you feel your pupils constrict.
It’s like walking along the shore, ocean
flashing on your left, sun straight ahead
flooding your eyes, dissolving your thoughts,”
LikeLiked by 4 people
Yes, I remember reading Ciardi’s translation of The Inferno in college. I was fascinated and horrified by the subject and transfixed by the language.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I’m sort of internet challenged, so I thought I replied to you, but don’t see it. Anyway, I love to think of you studying for an exam and getting so caught up in Dante the exam sort of fell away. (Hope you passed!)
LikeLike
Fabulous poem, Betsy!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Barbara. I always love seeing your poems–what a joy.
Betsy
LikeLiked by 2 people
Hi Betsy! I have an old email for you; can you send me what you’re using now (bcrooker@ptd.net)? Love to be in touch!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Barbara, thanks for wanting to be in touch. I’d like that. My current email is: shollbetsy@gmail.com. (The old juno address got hacked.)
I hope this makes it to you.
Betsy
LikeLike
Thank you, Barbara. I always love seeing your poems–what a joy.
Betsy
LikeLiked by 1 person