American Poet, Teacher and Essayist, Tony Hoagland (1953-2018)
MESSAGE TO A FORMER FRIEND
I just wanted to write and say,
in case you are hit tomorrow by a truck
or are swept from the beach by a freak wave;
or in case your ex-wife decides
to take her own life
right after taking yours;
or in case you go to the doctor,
who finds a lump in your neck,
and you are carried swiftly out onto the terrible waters
of clinics and infusions
and I never see you again —
I just wanted to say,
Bon voyage, my friend, my dear and former friend.
I just wanted to confess
how much you meant to me back then,
before I learned to hold my love in check
thanks to my tutorial with you.
Thank God I got those holes sealed shut
through which every passerby
could see my neediness,
and thank God I banished you
into that frozen part of me
where nothing moves or breathes.
And yet it’s funny, isn’t it?
Our weakness can never be eliminated;
neediness is part of what we are.
Living is a kind of wound;
a wound is a kind of opening;
and even love that disappeared
mysteriously comes back
like water bubbling up from underground,
cleansed from its long journey in the dark.
ready for someone to arrive, and kneel
and drink it in again.
Tony Hoagland from Recent Changes in the Vernacular, Tres Chicas Books, 2017
Losing long-term and valued friendships was something that happened to others, not to me! Or so I thought! Then one friendship in particular hit the rocks, foundered and has yet to be salvaged. I am not sure I am willing to bring that friendship back out of the depths but Tony Hoaglabnd’s poem encourages me to look on the relationship, me included, with more tenderness and compassion. To see my role in the relationships’ sinking and to feel the love that sustained it for years. To be grateful.
This, the sixth blog post featuring a poem(s) by Tony Hoagland since his death too soon this past October, carries so many of the elements that make up his poetry. His use of surprising and jarring turns of phrase ( in case your ex-wife decides/ to take her own life// right after taking yours;) and his startling reversals (a dismissive good bye, bon voyage poem, turns into a poem of self-examination and a form of reconciliation). Hoagland can’t resist taking shots or jabs at others but invariably he admits his complicity. He is never a smug above-it-aller. His saying one thing while meaning another:
Thank God I got those holes sealed shut
through which every passerby
could see my neediness,
and thank God I banished you
into that frozen part of me
where nothing moves or breathes.
Nice! And then the fast turn in this poem. From a tongue-in-cheek look at a failed friendship to a serious look at his (and our) inevitable flaws and a sea-change in the tone of the poem from a kind of flipness to a tender seriousness and a place of love:
And yet it’s funny, isn’t it?
Our weakness can never be eliminated;
neediness is part of what we are.
Living is a kind of wound;
a wound is a kind of opening;
and even love that disappeared
mysteriously comes back
like water bubbling up from underground,
cleansed from its long journey in the dark.
ready for someone to arrive, and kneel
and drink it in again.
Notice the poem doesn’t envision some glorious reunion with a former friend but but at least admits to reconnecting to a feeling of love for that friend. For me that means giving up who-was-right, who-was-wrong, thinking. Being grateful. Hoagland’s poem made me look at the end of my friendship in a different way. A way of letting go with gratitude! Thank you, Tony!