This month is National Poetry Month. I'm giving myself a challenge. As a a lover of poetry, I figure it's right for me to celebrate the month. So each week, I'm going to try to finish and review a book of poetry. So, here's the first.
The Great Wheel, by Paul Mariani
Simply and casually, we live our lives. Moments slip by without the slightest of thought. But at some point, we cannot escape the power of our memories. And in that reflection, the simplest of our memories, the casual moments of friendship and love often glow with the brightest fondness.
Paul Mariani's The Great Wheel feels like a collection based on a season of reflection. Indeed, Mariani seems to nod to this slowed down time, this taking stock of life and relationships in the title poem:
"For all our feigned bravado, we could feel the evening
over us, even as we stared down upon the blur of leaves,
our wives, our distant children, on all we would return
to..."
In Mariani's book, as the evening of reflection comes over him, we are introduced to a wide range of his life. From secretly admired college professors, to a sister trying to convince her brother to move from New England's winters to the beauty of California, to a faithful dog dying on a hot June afternoon. In these scenes, it is Mariani's simplicity that serves the poetry best, that brings an emotional punch.
As in any collection, there are several poems that stand out. "Quid Pro Quo," a jumbled mess of a poem, cacophonous and humming with song at the same time, takes on a God who allows a miscarriage but then gives the gift of a son. The brilliant moment at the end, "How does one bargain / with a God like this..." Simple, but full of life's mystery.
In "Falling Asleep," the narrator lays down with his son during a family get together, captures what it is like to be both father and son. A time of excitement, moments you don't want to miss, the brevity of the whole experience. "He will have to march off..." Mariani notes, "but here, here / in this room, the shadows wheeling / slowly about him, his father is still here..."
Like all good poetry, Mariani slows us down to examine life. Each son, sister, professor, friend, wife, pet is found to have a brilliance, a meaning, a value beyond words. In his simplest moments, Mariani brings us into that awe.
I connect with this poetry because it is about relationships. This Christmas I wrote a poetry book for my family, and Mariani's book reminds me of that. I have a sister out in Colorado, who would probably want to convince me to move out there. I have a son who wants to stay up "with the Big Ones" when the family is over, who I have to lay with to get him asleep. I have friends who have experienced the detrimental effects of a miscarriage, but have now been blessed with a son. These poems stand out to me because of their truth.
And in the end, the wheel of life, the great wheel that brings us relationships, sons, sisters, moms, dads, babies... the same wheel that takes these things away, is
"a wheel revolving uniformly - by
the Love that moves the sun and the other stars."
In the end, I trust that Love. I thank that Love for all the gifts that it brings!
