Not one of us tried to remember
what happened in that cave
in the middle of tropical December
The men burned to not less than ember
villagers we’d tried to save
not one of us tried to remember
The two Portland boys in chain and fetter
so long starved they could only shake and rave
in the middle of tropical December
When Lieutenant Conley, the featherweight contender
saved a drowning man but was swallowed by a wave
not one of us tried to remember
The countless letters we had to return to sender
because the man listed was now in a grave
in the middle of tropical December
Not one of us tried to remember
The savage ways we learned to behave
in the middle of tropical December
Other poems on Moss Kingdom about winter:
The View From Winter, December 21: an Advent poem for the Winter Solstice, Praying in the Sanctuary of Snow, Winter Words: a poem about the uselessness of poems, The Prodigal Sun: a poem about how we love the Sun despite his philandering, After Walking in the Rain, All Sad Thoughts Are Banished: reflections on Roethke’s death at the Bloedel Reserve, Of Edmund and Aslan, Winter Staves by Rusten Harris, Liturgical Time by Rusten Harris,“What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, A Seduction: in Four Seasons, Not One of Us Tried to Remember by Duncan King
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| Head of a Drowned Man – Theodore Gericault, 1819 |
Duncan is a former student of mine who wrote this poem after I challenged him to try a villanelle. I think he did a damn good job for his first attempt.