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I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
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I tell you that I see her still
At the dark entrance of the hall.
One gas lamp burning near her shoulder
Shone also from her other side
Where hung the long inaccurate glass
Whose pictures were as troubled water.
An immense shadow had its hand
Between us on the floor, and seemed
To hump the knuckles nervously,
A giant crab readying to walk,
Or a blanket moving in its sleep.
You will remember, with a smile
Instructed by movies to reminisce,
How strict her corsets must have been,
How the huge arrangements of her hair
Would certainly betray the least
Impassionate displacement there.
It was no rig for dallying,
And maybe only marriage could
Derange that queenly scaffolding -
As when a great ship, coming home,
Coasts in the harbor, dropping sail
And loosing all the tackle that had laced
Her in the long lanes...
I know
We need not draw this figure out
But all that whalebone came for whales
And all the whales lived in the sea,
In calm beneath the troubled glass,
Until the needle drew their blood.
I see her standing in the hall,
Where the mirror's lashed to blood and foam,
And the black flukes of agony
Beat at the air till the light blows out.
Howard Nemerov
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Read poems about / on: marriage, mirror, remember, hair, smile, water, alone, sleep, home, sea, dark, light
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Comments about this poem (I Only Am Escaped Alone to Tell Thee
by
Howard Nemerov
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Howard Nemerov
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Dan Redican
(3/20/2007 6:52:00 PM) |
The title 'And I only am escaped to tell thee' is from the book of Job, the response of Job's servants when they tell him how God has punished them 'Your cattle are all destroyed. I only am escaped alone to tell you.' 'Your crops are all destroyed. I only am escaped alone to tell you.' 'Your children are all destroyed. I only am escaped alone to tell you.'
So the title is the narrator as our servant telling the story of someone or something that's been destroyed. And that something seems to be the whales which are tormented, not so much for vanity, as the desire to hold in and overpower the hidden (subaquatic) animal nature.
At first I thought it might be a reminiscence of a mother or a grandmother - some female figure from a distant time. If so, it's pretty creepy - or if it's just some anonymous woman, he's trying to imagine her as a sexual being and he's thwarted by her rigid formality.
He is perhaps looking at an old photo or just thinking, imagining? But the detail he's conveying is either a memory or a photo- whalebone corsets are from another century and Nemerov is a twentieth century poet.
He thinks of her sexually but then imagines that her 'strict' corsets and the huge arrangements of her hair would 'betray' this feeling. The idea alone is enough to take the thought away.
But the sexuality is there. The immense shadow with it's hand between us on the floor. A giant crab readying itself to walk...or a blanket moving in its sleep...two images that are not very inviting. the crab is armoured and armed with little awareness and the sleeping blanket is unconscious.
And then only a husband could hope for congress with her...a very formal affair compared to a ship coming into port.
There is a sense that sex is an impossibilty - that her formal dress and hair present an insuperable barrier... he compares her at first to a large fine ship, perhaps a whaling ship.
He then goes on to describe her corsets being made from whalebone. So even though he says 'you will remember with a smile' when talking about her old underwear, the image he conjures is not at all comic. He goes on to convey the horror of the death of the whale.
Living in calm beneath the troubled glass, the water is now like the mirror we saw at the beginning, with animal life going on beneath it in the same way that she has animal life going on beneath her dress....the sexuality that he knows is there.
But the needle drew their blood, (an odd quiet image for the killing of whales) But once she is wearing them she is seen to be wearing the death of the whale.
I don't know. He seems to have some serious problems and unless I'm mistaken it's a very personal poem and - maybe there's a biographical context that can explain it, I'm not sure it's possible to get much closer than this in explaining it.
By the way, it's written mainly in iambic tetrameter and it's formal structure is really quite beautiful.
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