The Call by C. Dale Young

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 20, 2015   The Call   C. Dale Young

in memoriam Cecil Young   I am addicted to words, constantly ferret them away in anticipation. You cannot accuse me of not being prepared. I am ready for anything. I can create an image faster than   just about anyone. And so, the crows blurring the tree line; the sky’s light dimming and shifting; the Pacific cold and impatient as ever: this is just the way I feel. Nothing more.   I could gussy up those crows, transform them into something more formal, more Latinate, could use the exact genus Corvus, but I won’t. Not today.   Like any addict, I, too, have limits. And I have written too many elegies already. The Living have become jealous of the amount I have written for the Dead.   So, leave the crows perched along the tree line watching over us. Leave them be. The setting sun? Leave it be. For God’s sake, what could be easier   in a poem about death than a setting sun? Leave it be. Words cannot always help you, the old poet had taught me, cannot always be there for you no matter how you   store them away with sharpened forethought. Not the courier in his leather sandals, his legs dark and dirty from the long race across the desert. Not the carrier   pigeon arriving with the news of another dead Caesar and the request you present yourself. Nothing like that. The telephone rings. Early one morning, the telephone rings   and the voice is your mother’s voice. No fanfare. Your father’s brother is dead. He died that morning. And your tongue went silent. Like any other minor poet, you could not find   the best words, the appropriate words. Leave it be now. You let your mother talk and talk to fill the silence. Leave it be. All of your practiced precision, all of the words saved up   for a poem, can do nothing to remedy that now.            Copyright © 2015 by C. Dale Young. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “I drafted ‘The Call’ in the weeks after my uncle’s death. I cried the entire time writing and revising it. He is missed.” —C. Dale Young   C. Dale Young’s latest collection of poetry is Torn (Four Way Books, 2011).  He practices medicine full-time and lives in San Francisco. Most Recent Book by Young   Torn (Four Way Books, 2011) "The sun rears" by Jennifer Bartlett "Before" by Carl Adamshick "The Words Under the Words" by Naomi Shihab Nye Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038