Vox Populi
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Mary Jane White: Rain, In Riverview Cemetery, Martins Ferry, Ohio
In the ruts of the crushed-cinder switchbacks, puddles all the way up
To the top. More at the foot of a blackened angel, and at
The foot of a polished urn the size and shape of a grown woman,
Her name, Pyle, etched into the granite. Plastic flowers, the American
Flags and bronze markers of service to the Un-Serene Republic stand
In the rain. Fog off the river obscures any promised view of the city
Which, today, on the first of May, is easily as cold as I remember
Venice was in January, and easily as foggy and rainy and stony.
Martins Ferry is an inland Mestre, another Venice without its decayed
Concupiscences, its trappings of wealth, and serenity. The rain
Already hangs a grey shawl in front of the blue domes of the Ohio
Greek Orthodox church, standing cheek by jowl by an industrial dairy.
At the one Russian Orthodox brick cathedral in Venice, marked
With a plaque in Cyrillic, we stopped in the rain, when we found it.
James Wright stood here, maybe in the rain, and got out of it.
For Michael and Eva Simms
May 1, 2023
~~~~
Copyright 2024 Mary Jane White. First published in The Hudson Review.
Mary Jane White’s many publications include Dragon Fly. Toad. Moon. (Press 53, 2022). Originally from North Carolina, she practiced law at her home, the O. J. Hager House in Waukon, Iowa.
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Enjoyed the poem, thinking of my grandson with Williams Syndrome. Also glad I clicked on the link to learn more about this poet.
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I meant to say thinking of my grandson after reading about the poet.
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I didn’t know that your grandson has WS. Years ago, I worked with children who had it, and they were beautiful…
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He is a beautiful young man (13). He is extremely skinny because he was on a food tube for the first part of his life and does not like to eat. ( this is one kid I will feed even junk food if he will eat it) He is in junior high and plays drums in the school band. When I visit, Tashi and I get special hugs.
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Cool!
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Thanks for this evocative poem that circles me back to James Wright, and his famous poem about Autumn in that Ohio place, downstream from Pittsburgh.
When Wright died, his friend, the poet Richard Hugo, wrote an elegy in which he alluded to Martin’s Ferry, Wright’s hometown. Hugo wrote: You need every laugh you get/ when your hometown’s stocked with broken souls./You left and couldn’t leave that dirty river town/ where every day the dirty river rolls.
Here, Mary Jane Wright’s poem unbreaks some of those souls.
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Thanks, Jim.
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Wonderfully evocative (and sobering). Thanks for it, Mike! So many good poems on VP!
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Thanks, Syd.
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