The Pleasant Gloominess of Autumn

Howdy, y'all. Sorry for no post last week; I was on vacation, hiking in the Blue Ridge Mountains. I bring back no thrilling tales of snakebite or hand-to-bear combat, although I did get us lost at one point, which almost led to a thrilling tale because it made my wife want to throw a rock at my head. (She quelled the urge, and as of this writing I remain concussion-free.)

We hiked in some deep woods, and all around us were the signs of impending autumn: brown, brittle grass and green leaves mottled with splotches of yellow and red. Since then, temperatures have cooled, and now it's October, and for me the whole month of October is colored by the fact that it's the month in which Halloween occurs. As far as I'm concerned you might as well call it Halloweenber. So I've got fall and Halloween on the brain, which really means I've got a case of the macabres. I want to read Poe and listen to goth bands and watch horror movies. And I find myself thinking about death at odd moments.

So of course I warmed right up to "On the Electrodynamics of Dying Bodies" by Kimberly Ruth, a poem in the latest issue of Web del Sol's Del Sol Review. The poem is structured in four sections (two blank verse and two prose) that vary in tone, mood, rhythm, and content, creating an overall effect like a four-faceted jewel that provides four different refractions of the same object: people dying.

It's not a grim poem, or at least it didn't strike me that way. It's not a nihilist insistence on the ugliness or inescapability of death. But it is a somber poem that directs our attention to events and ideas and feelings that we usually look away from:

It is titled War Execution. His face is contorted with one eye shut and the other only half- so, like a broken window stuck ajar, yet he stands straight, shoulders down, hands behind his back. If they are tied, I do not know. He is young, in his twenties, maybe, and a gun is pressed against his head. FLASH. Capture iniquity. FLASH. Expose truth. FLASH.

The poem shows a welcome restraint here. It could have depicted the actual war execution, but instead it shows us a photograph of the event, reminding us that we are spectators to the atrocities and heartbreaks that death so often involves. In this and other ways, the poem subtly asks its readers: What do you think about this execution, this death, this grief, you who are part of this death-ridden world?

So if you're in a seasonal mood like mine--or if you just want to read a good poem--go to Del Sol Review and read the whole poem. Otherwise, you should check out the rest of the issue, which is not as dark, I promise. Although there is that story about the zombie . . .