A Flickering

#aflickering #poetry15

Recently, I found myself wandering through a home goods store on a whim, and I saw a whole table of pillar candles, flickering. The flames where so active that I was attracted by the glow. I stepped closer and realized that the candles flames were not real. I could touch the flame with my fingers. I could knock the candle over, and fire would not destroy the table, would not lap over the edge into the thickly stuffed pillows and fluffy throws. I could buy one, and my children could play with it. Would I? Buy one?

I didn’t, but I was tempted.

What is the point of this story? I keep thinking about candles, yes, tucked into carved jack-o-lanterns. And of spooky lights; the eye might see something like a shadow and perceive reality one way when it is another. But what I’m really thinking about is how October can offer a kind of slight-of-hand. Who needs metaphor when you have actual costumes? Who needs fire when you can have fake flames?

I think that playing with this in a poem that taps into this quality, this spookiness, this cloaking, can be subtle. It can also be a way to harness creativity when all the fake scariness takes over. It helps us find what’s truly terrifying.

I think Louise Glück’s poem “All Hallows” is a scary poem. It plays with light, with change. Animating it, showing us it isn’t what it seems. The poem begins in the middle of things: “Even now this landscape is assembling.” But the ending! It ends with the “And the soul creeps out of the tree.” (!) It comes out of nowhere, yet out of everywhere.

Let’s play with perception this month. And when metaphor steps out of costume into its core essence.

If you don’t know what that means, that’s OK. I’m still figuring it out.