KNOXVILLE: SUMMER OF 1915
Summer is a time for appreciating a slower pace, for smelling summer's air and for listening to summer's summer's sounds.
James Agee, in this prose poem, does not write about the Great Lakes, but of a place much farther south in Tennessee But his words are resonant of the season, of the era 90 years ago and they well could fit right here by the sweet water seas.
And even if we did not live an experience just like this one, I think most of us wish that we had.
It has become the time of evening when people sit on their porches,
rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street
and standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees,
of birds' hung havens, hangers.
People go by, things go by.
A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt;
a loud auto; a quiet auto;
people in pairs, not in a hurry,
scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually,
the taste of hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk,
the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.
The streetcar raising its iron moan:
stopping, belling and starting; stertorous, rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan
and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past,
the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks;
the iron whine rises on rising speed;
still risen, faints; halts; the faints stinging bell;
rises again, still fainter, fainter, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten.
Now is the night of one blue dew.
Now is the night of one blue dew,
my father has drained,
now he has coiled the hose.
Low on the length of lawns,
a frailing of fire who breathes ...
Parents on porches: rock and rock.
From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.
On the rough, wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts.
We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt and I too am lying there...
They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,
of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all.
The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near.
All my people are larger bodies than mine, ...
with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds.
One is an artist, he is living at home.
One is a musician, she is living at home.
One is my mother who is good to me.
One is my father who is good to me.
By some chance, here they are, all on this earth,
lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.
May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mothers, my good father,
oh remember them kindly in their time of trouble;
and in the hour of their taking away.
After a little I am taken in and put to bed.
Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her:
and those receive me, who quietly treat me,
as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:
but will not, no, will not, not now, not ever;
but will not tell me who I am.
Remarkably Agee wrote this prose poem in just 90 minutes. It is approximately the last third of the introduction to his Pulitzer prize winning novel: "A Death in the Family."
In 1947, Samuel Barber set Knoxville to music for a soprano and orchestra.
I thank Glenn Watkins for reintroducing the Agee work to me.
James Agee, in this prose poem, does not write about the Great Lakes, but of a place much farther south in Tennessee But his words are resonant of the season, of the era 90 years ago and they well could fit right here by the sweet water seas.
And even if we did not live an experience just like this one, I think most of us wish that we had.
It has become the time of evening when people sit on their porches,
rocking gently and talking gently and watching the street
and standing up into their sphere of possession of the trees,
of birds' hung havens, hangers.
People go by, things go by.
A horse, drawing a buggy, breaking his hollow iron music on the asphalt;
a loud auto; a quiet auto;
people in pairs, not in a hurry,
scuffling, switching their weight of aestival body, talking casually,
the taste of hovering over them of vanilla, strawberry, pasteboard and starched milk,
the image upon them of lovers and horsemen, squared with clowns in hueless amber.
The streetcar raising its iron moan:
stopping, belling and starting; stertorous, rousing and raising again its iron increasing moan
and swimming its gold windows and straw seats on past and past and past,
the bleak spark crackling and cursing above it like a small malignant spirit set to dog its tracks;
the iron whine rises on rising speed;
still risen, faints; halts; the faints stinging bell;
rises again, still fainter, fainter, lifting, lifts, faints forgone: forgotten.
Now is the night of one blue dew.
Now is the night of one blue dew,
my father has drained,
now he has coiled the hose.
Low on the length of lawns,
a frailing of fire who breathes ...
Parents on porches: rock and rock.
From damp strings morning glories hang their ancient faces.
The dry and exalted noise of the locusts from all the air at once enchants my eardrums.
On the rough, wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts.
We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt and I too am lying there...
They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet,
of nothing in particular, of nothing at all in particular, of nothing at all.
The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near.
All my people are larger bodies than mine, ...
with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds.
One is an artist, he is living at home.
One is a musician, she is living at home.
One is my mother who is good to me.
One is my father who is good to me.
By some chance, here they are, all on this earth,
lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of the night.
May God bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mothers, my good father,
oh remember them kindly in their time of trouble;
and in the hour of their taking away.
After a little I am taken in and put to bed.
Sleep, soft smiling, draws me unto her:
and those receive me, who quietly treat me,
as one familiar and well-beloved in that home:
but will not, no, will not, not now, not ever;
but will not tell me who I am.
Remarkably Agee wrote this prose poem in just 90 minutes. It is approximately the last third of the introduction to his Pulitzer prize winning novel: "A Death in the Family."
In 1947, Samuel Barber set Knoxville to music for a soprano and orchestra.
I thank Glenn Watkins for reintroducing the Agee work to me.
Labels: Stories musings and such
posted by gerry_volgenau at 8/05/2008 09:39:00 AM
