There is a Circuit for Sadness
linking memory to emotion,
hippocampus to amygdala,
head to heart.
Mine is a strong but faulty current
I learn now. Sometimes the synapses
flicker and go dark,
like a satellite map of Midwestern towns
at 2 a.m.: no traffic light, and the odd
porch light or street light
as far apart as fireflies floating
the deserted highway.
This circuit is more the cold ache
of the Aleutian current
than the bathwater of the Gulf Stream.
Some people’s neural circuits light up
like Manhattan at 2 a.m., but
I am that insomniac
back in that Midwestern town,
sitting on a porch swing.
The moon is large and rides the flat horizon.
I can think in such quiet, with only an echo
of a coyote’s distant bark against the barn.
“Each man is a half opened door
leading to a room for everyone”
Tomas Transtromer
Some are double bolted with bars
on a storm door. The loved and hated
inside are prisoners.
Some are blown off, so wind
and rain and vermin come and go—
no more a shelter than a lean-to,
addicts lean against the walls,
curl up in squalor, recognizing no one.
Some are French doors, admitting
morning light, the people within
drink coffee and wake
like swimmers coming up for air.
Some are Plexiglas storm doors
with brass handles. Smudged glass
gives the impression of transparency.
Plastic runners through white-carpeted rooms
welcome no one, the thermostat
a year-round 65 degrees.
Some are scarred but beautiful,
solid oak, uneven stain and raw grain,
the original inside handle replaced
with a crystal knob. The people come and go—
loved, stifled, launched.
Lessons on Loss in January
An arthritic oak
wears a tattered skirt
of last year’s leaves.
Sometimes old grief is ugly and vain.
Two century old yellow maples
grew up together so close
they fused above the roots.
Now one remains, strong and wounded
a bald spot at the base
where lightning blew them apart,
felling the other.
We survive loss.
A row of red cedars, branches
touching like children’s clasped hands
playing Red Rover, is a strong shelter
against cruel wind.
Hold hands, and bend.
Yet merciful wind strips high branches
on poplar trees even of loss.
How can Spring’s yellow-green buds appear
without winter blasts that pry those last
dead leaves loose?
Their dark beauty against a changing
palette of sky is its own stark victory.
Let go.
In January, nocturnal roots
hold fast to the earth in freeze
and thaw, secretly incubating Spring.
Trust the unseen.
Deciduous trees, like aging starlets,
die from the inside out.
Conifers die from the outside in.
Leave me my heartwood.
I am evergreen.
Surreality
Here land is sea and sea is land.
I am rocked to sleep each night
and swim the sky across dry oceans.
Down is up and up is down,
so when I am depressed I fly,
when happy, dance the liquid land.
It is virtuous to sleep at sunrise
and wake well after noon, since
day is night and night is day,
Insomniacs walk well-lit museums
of empty streets. Only 24-hour diners
and all-night groceries are filled with
dazed somnambulists wearing shades.
Our waking hours are lit with party lights.
Whole populations of birds lost
to the false promise of luminous cities,
forget their yearly migrations.
When they die, their feathers are the seeds
of a new species.
After death, humans come back, perennials
in spring, in time for Mother’s and Father’s Day,
make amends, or testify
at their own murder trials, vacation
in summer, then fade away in fall.
The world itself grows prodigious
as a cabbage in a bright Alaskan summer.
There is room for all. We fly with no luggage,
no planes. Instead of highways, ribbons of farmland
guide our flight patterns east, west, north and south.
To get back home, we breathe into a paper bag.
God Particle: A Cosmology
Higgs boson: a sticky particle that gives weight and mass to all it touches…
…”smaller than all other particles but also heavier in atomic weight. Considered the glue of the universe, the Higgs is an invisible energy field that fills space”. (mydictionary.com)
I. Dream
A taxonomy of animals parades
through the hardscape
guided by the stars,
or some invisible unction.
Suddenly I sprawl on a brick walkway
below, unbroken. A cardinal
hops towards me with great urgency,
then on my shoulder. I stand up
just as a river of black cats wends its way
through the town.
II. Anxiety/Waking
Heart’s mysterious pounding
in the dark—waking from a dream?
Rehearsing tomorrow’s failure?
Inside a macro womb
constellations of blood vessels
pulse their code,
elemental and Other.
III. Reality: Already/Not Yet
I remember I am held,
held first, then released,
released to crash into everything
sacred and profane:
to resound like a bell
to mourn like a flute.
The prayers of my ancestors
pelt like a meteor shower,
replenish like a Spring storm.
Let me be held in that prescience.
Let me not be forgotten.
Let my elements cycle
through eons and diffuse
to spirit, ash, ether.
When Day descends,
give me my new name
on a white stone.
Rachel Landrum Crumble recently retired from teaching high school, having previously taught kindergarten through college. She has published in The Porterhouse Review, Typishly, SheilaNaGig, and Common Ground Review, Spoon River Review, The Banyan Review, among others, and forthcoming in Poetry Breakfast and Humans of the World. Her first poetry collection, Sister Sorrow, was published by Finishing Line Press in January 2022. She lives with her husband of 43 years, a jazz drummer, and near 2 of their 3 adult children, and two adorable grand twins. poetteachermom.com is her website.
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