What the Living Do
Marie Howe
Johnny, the kitchen sink has been clogged for days, some utensil probably fell down there. And the Drano won't work but smells dangerous, and the crusty dishes have piled up waiting for the plumber I still haven't called. This is the everyday we spoke of. It's winter again: the sky's a deep, headstrong blue, and the sunlight pours through the open living-room windows because the heat's on too high in here and I can't turn it off. For weeks now, driving, or dropping a bag of groceries in the street, the bag breaking, I've been thinking: This is what the living do. And yesterday, hurrying along those wobbly bricks in the Cambridge sidewalk, spilling my coffee down my wrist and sleeve, I thought it again, and again later, when buying a hairbrush: This is it. Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold. What you called that yearning. What you finally gave up. We want the spring to come and the winter to pass. We want whoever to call or not call, a letter, a kiss--we want more and more and then more of it. But there are moments, walking, when I catch a glimpse of myself in the window glass, say, the window of the corner video store, and I'm gripped by a cherishing so deep for my own blowing hair, chapped face, and unbuttoned coat that I'm speechless: I am living. I remember you.
This is a poem that made me want to be a poet. It might even be the poem that made me want to be a poet. And reading it now I feel so moved by it my throat thickens with tears that don't quite come. I feel that longing all over again, or as Howe quotes Johnny - that yearning.
How to understand how it is working? it feels packed with detail: long, claustrophobic lines describe the trivia of everyday life - groceries, coffee, hairbrush, parking. So that we understand how busy it is to just live, how packed with stuff we have to do and get and make and be. But there is also breakdown going on: the kitchen sink is blocked, the dishes can't be done, the heating won't turn off, coffee is spilt, the grocery bag breaking. Things are clogged, dangerous, wobbly. The poem's narrator is busy, her life a bit unmanageable, even. But even so, even though we perpetually want things to be different, even though things are so fucked-up, even though life is difficult, we can receive the blessing of it, we can love this life, this life that "I am living". And perhaps this remembering is an act of honouring those who lost their lives. People like Johnny who we might infer died too young and even perhaps took his own life? (What you finally gave up)
So, in terms of how the poem is constructed, there are these long lines that seem packed with information. And the use of enjambment also gives this sense of hurry, of too much to do and too much to think about, too much to fit in the already long lines. But the effect is not overstated, which would make it be a bit of a joke, rather the sense of too much to do, to much to cope with is just quietly stated and contained, kind of the way I often feel, that maybe a lot of us feel. Pressured and overloaded, but coping.
I'm not sure about other musical elements of the poem - I can identify some sound patterns that make the first half of the poem more percussive (if that is the right word), more "cutlery" than the second half of the poem, which does sound softer and more pensive, more reflective. So, the first couplet has those hard sounds of 'K' - kitchen, clogged, crusty and 'D' - days, drano, dangerous, dishes. But then the second couplet goes a bit softer and dreamer - waiting, we, winter; and the internal rhyming of 'blue' with 'through'. But then we're back on the job again in the third couplet - driving, dropping, bag breaking. And in the fourth couplet - "Parking. Slamming the car door shut in the cold." I just get the sense of that, it's not special fancy poetic language, it's just cold and hard and life is busy and you have to carry your own groceries and get stuff done. And it's material for a poem.
It seems to me that the busy-ness and the reflection weave in and out of those first five couplets. But then once the idea of "that yearning" is introduced, the mood turns entirely reflective. And under the heading of what the living do, we can see ourselves as this weird tribe, the living, who are full of wants. And the writing becomes softened by all these softer sounds of W and U and O and OA - we/want/what; you/who; more and more and then more; walking/window/own blowing.
And then the ending, which is so beautiful: "I am living. I remember you." We have been arrested by the previous lines, when the narrator is "gripped by a cherishing so deep" and the hard sounds of G, P, B and D. And then in the pause we observe the intensely ordinary details of hair and face and unbuttoned coat seen in reflection, and we are thus invited to see ourselves, to imagine seeing ourselves in this very ordinary way and to know that we live. The poet lets us pause and recall our life and those we have lost.
