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- Herausgeber: Modern History Press
- Kategorie: Poesie und Drama
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2022
A long time ago young men wishing to be tall
scaled the mast of my octopus arms
and scanned the horizon of Lake Superior
for a glimmer of Canada. Usually we were cut down ... For many of those who've lived there, the Upper Peninsula of Michigan can seem like a magical place because nature there feels so potent and, at times, full of mystery. After having grown up there, Raymond Luczak can certainly attest to its mythical powers. In Chlorophyll, he reimagines Lake Superior and its environs as well as his houseplants as a variety of imaginary and historical characters.
Ghosts dress in only gray and white.
This is how they camouflage their volcanic selves.
Lake Superior is bottled with them.
You can't see them but they move like fish ... "In Raymond Luczak's Chlorophyll, the devastating natural beauty of Michigan's Upper Peninsula is imbued with passions its reticent human inhabitants are loathe to express. Trees, lakes, and stones air their infatuations, their grudges, their mythologies and griefs. Through this forest of the otherwise unsaid, we catch glimpses of a speaker who knows there is no line to blur between 'person' and 'nature.'" --Emily Van Kley, author of Arrhythmia and The Rust and the Cold Spring is a girl who's cried all night
only to find that morning easily forgives
the coldness of him having left her
stranded among the thicket of evergreens ... "Giving voice to the natural world, Raymond Luczak allows the rocks, trees, lakes, insects, and flowers that are part of flora and fauna of the region to speak for themselves, and they remind us that we are human, living in a more than human world." --William Reichard, author of Our Delicate Barricades Downed and The Night Horse: New and Selected Poems
Raymond Luczak grew up in the Upper Peninsula. He is the author and editor of numerous titles such as Compassion, Michigan: The Ironwood Stories. His book once upon a twin: poems was chosen as a U.P. Notable Book for 2021. He resides in Minneapolis, Minnesota.
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Copyright
Chlorophyll: Poems about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula
© Copyright 2022 by Raymond Luczak
978-1-61599-642-1 paperback
978-1-61599-643-8 hardcover
978-1-61599-644-5 eBook
Cover Design: Mona Z. Kraculdy
Cover Photograph (“Furnace Lake”): Shawn Malone, Lake Superior Photo (lakesuperiorphoto.com)
Author Photograph: Raymond Luczak
All rights reserved. No part of this book can be reproduced in any form by any means without written permission. Please address inquiries to the publisher:
Modern History Press
5145 Pontiac Trail
Ann Arbor, MI 48105
Toll-free: 888-761-6268
Fax: 734-663-6861
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: modernhistorypress.com
Distributed by Ingram (USA/CAN/AU) and Bertram’s Books (UK/EU).
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Luczak, Raymond, 1965- author.
Title: Chlorophyll : poems about Michigan’s Upper Peninsula / Raymond Luczak.
Description: Ann Arbor, Michigan : Modern History Press, [2022] | Summary: “With this poetry collection, the author celebrates the wilderness of Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The book’s 52 poems not only explore the changes of each season but also the inner lives of flora and trees and waves alongside Lake Superior”-- Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022000954 (print) | LCCN 2022000955 (ebook) | ISBN 9781615996438 (hardcover) | ISBN 9781615996421 (paperback) | ISBN 9781615996445 (epub)
Subjects: LCSH: Upper Peninsula (Mich.)--Poetry. | LCGFT: Poetry.
Classification: LCC PS3562.U2554 C48 2022 (print) | LCC PS3562.U2554 (ebook) | DDC 811/.54--dc23/eng/20220112
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000954
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022000955
CONTENTS
I
Amygdaloid
Immigrants
The Birth of Agates
On the Docks Off Eagle Harbor
How Copper Came to the Keweenaw Peninsula
Jaspilites
Off the Cliffs of Lake Superior
Basalt
Why Giants Don’t Exist in the Upper Peninsula
Gichigami
Fog Off Little Girl’s Point
A Ghost, Halfway There
Ontonagon
II
The Orange-Haired Girl
In the Nightclub
Winter’s Ex-Girlfriend
The Mop-Haired Boy
The Red Maple Wife
Squatters
Probation
Debutantes
The Saboteur
Two Apple Trees
Dragonflies
Mothlight
Chlorophyll
III
Two Nests
My Dracaena Daughters
The Compost Pile
The Tulip Diva
Mademoiselle Rose
Fittonias
Lakewood Cemetery
Medusa’s Hair
The First Musk
The Cutting
Lilacs
This Nameless Field
A Most Mysterious Gardener
IV
Stumps
November Roots
Firewood
The Birch Tree
Lichen
White Pines
The Woodcarver
The Property Line
Tree on Taylor Street
Summers Ago on This Corner a Tangle of Pines
Mother Birch
On the Corner of Oak and Spruce
Samara
Acknowledgments
forEric Norris
I
AMYGDALOID
1.
Millions of years ago this was a land of volcanoes.
Lava spewed like lunch. Once the raging cooled off,
everything fell into fissures. Bubbles of oxygen
drowned, trapped into stones of no distinction.
2.
The word “amygdaloid” stems from the Latin word
for “almond.” Centuries have smelted it with meanings.
The “amygdalae” stimulates the brain’s hypothalamus
into thinking emotion and feeling memory.
3.
In the clearing of woods near the abandoned mines,
the rust of iron is a powder that can’t be showered away
even in the luminous rains of April. It’s always there,
lurking like the snake of autumn waiting to bite.
4.
The word also refers to the texture of stone
lined with empty hisses. Such stones had to have existed
when the first man and woman discovered the snake
of knowledge in the virgin act of fornication.
5.
Tons of rocks aggregate amidst the merciless torture
the waves of Lake Superior administer nonstop.
The water is a lava-burned woman hell-bent on revenge.
No one will ever breathe again. They must drown.
6.
Agates, far smaller than almonds, grasp at the anchor
of others their kind clinging to the soil underneath
at the edge of the world between water and land.
They dream of never having to time their breaths.
7.
The word is also the name of my high school yearbook.
The brain is a stone filled with lonely vesicles.
Come pour the water of memory into the gaping holes
of what I should remember. I’m far from home.
IMMIGRANTS
Winds from the south flung me, a raindrop, north
where I approached the top tier of the Bond Falls.
Before I parachuted down, I took sight
of the Ontonagon River below me.
Trees stood high like jagged daggers
stuck upside down in the riverbanks.
I prayed the winds would sway me away,
but the pitter-patter below was much too loud.
I crashed right next to a clump of torn grass
off the river. I bounced on a branch of blade and clung.
But my fluid arms and hands grew cold and tired.
I fell asleep into the cascading waters.
Jolted alive, I felt a million arms of strangers
grabbing me as we surged north as one.
The river’s width and drops in elevation
only made us tenacious. We were an army of one.
We marched right through the Agate Falls.
We burbled hopes of a Promised Sea.
Out in the mouth of Ontonagon River
onto Lake Superior, stories and legends swirled.
Who knew that we had so much history?
Even the smallest drop has a story.
THE BIRTH OF AGATES
Ghosts dress in only gray and white.
This is how they camouflage their volcanic selves.
Lake Superior is bottled with them.
You can’t see them but they move like fish.
They streak lightnings of iced lava.
Their whispers startle walleye and lake sturgeon.
They lurk in the shadow of fishing boats.
Their folds flit around the swaying bait.
They dream of toying with the line.
Laughter from above ripples like thunder.
Their eyes turn dull as yellow perch.
They shed tears of crimson rainbows.
It hurts to wipe away these unfulfilled dreams.
The shores of Lake Superior bloom in agate.
ON DOCKS OFF EAGLE HARBOR
In the east, the moon rises
a contained ball of flame.
Winds surf the anxious waves
and around the lonely docks.
Unfamiliar stars tip their toes
in the vast lake of night.
Stale clouds coat the lighthouse
blinking its tired pulse.
The moon arches even higher
on the ladder with each minute.
The north leaks a faint light,
an unsettling of ghosts long past.
Isle Royale is a shadow,
trees unshaven in the swath.
Sprinkles of water thunder
across the stiffened benches.
Shedding its residue, the moon
sails clean-white on high.
HOW COPPER CAME TO THE KEWEENAW PENINSULA
A long time ago Venus paid the Keweenaw Peninsula
a visit. She stepped off her gold-encrusted chariot
on the shore off Eagle Harbor. Her horses,
shimmering with the flaxen sun, nibbled
at the wild plants that lined Lake Superior.
Indeed on this beautiful summer day, made
for galloping above the lilting waves, she rested.
She much needed a vacation alone from the chaos
after the Romans forced her half-sister Aphrodite
into exile. She was tired of being watched.
She gathered a bevy of raspberries and strawberries.
Her skin glowed with the flush of fresh blood.
Her toes nestled among agates that nuzzled.
She sat facing the western sun from a fallen log,
worn smooth as sandal against marble.
Up north the darkening skies spewed hues of color.
Her cousin Sagittarius galloped and shot arrows at stars,
not knowing that she was watching, let alone missing.
Her horses settled down to sleep on the sand
next to her. The night air was her blanket.
After so many nights alone in bed, she’d thought
her husband Vulcan would never notice
the emptiness in their bed, or how she’d drifted
into loneliness as she saw how he banished
the rest of the Greek side of her family.
She suddenly heard a distant rumble of hooves
thundering from the east. She squinted at
the chariot silhouette of Vulcan whipping
his horses harder, faster, now. Her heart sank
