All Souls

All Souls Saskia Hamilton (bio) Chemical burring of the tongue.Good to be on the other sideof treatment for now. We scroll on. Would a codex restorethe balance of recto and verso. Take up the book. Dreams luminousin anticipation of the alarm.When it comes, how dark and modest waking is. [End Page 33] Reading the news, waiting for sleep or the night to pass, tap ofrain on the window unit, desk of unfinished work in the nextroom. X the painter has died. Images in my hand of the enormousfaces she painted, the cause of death in narrative paragraphs, allthe world of representation compressed on the screen. Why retell the stories of those before us? They already spokethem, or held their tongues—fell silent. A lifetime to overcomethe prohibition not to. But the lens is all wrong these days. I’dthought it a sunset, a sketch, told again as all sunsets are. To saysomething sincerely yet inauthentically is the danger. And Eliotstruck “Ode” from the first U.S. edition of his poems to preventhis mother from seeing it.… What prompted that thought? Body does not want to sit up justyet. One two one two go the taps. The child stirs—light herewithemitted in the dark. [End Page 34] In search of a medicinal hour. Hortus:sitting at the café with apple cakewhile garden-goers stir the gravel path.Compacted here, luxuriant trained growthof teaberry, gentian, trumpet vine,comfrey, field restharrow, &c.Our apothecary ancestor with his liber ingressustoken entered here to gather the herbsfor infusions that were to aid the unwellcaught in the far gone far alone glanceof mortality, moving the clock handsfrom one hour into the hour.Who is there now to announce the triumphof hope? But by and by, afterseeds have been scattered, stirred and covered over,blossomed, gathered, dried, crushed. Hot, late afternoon,bees crossing bees and white butterflies. [End Page 35] “Death closes all.” Yes. But were they grantedanything, none know beforehand,breath going out for a decade,returning in a century,while those gathered there fall out oftheir own pockets, or is itthe count and rhythm, unableto fix a mark or a lover’s thoughtat the moment when the face of the encounterbecame knowledge completed. [End Page 36] Saskia Hamilton saskia hamilton is the author of four poetry collections, including Corridor and All Souls, forthcoming in October. She is the editor of several works, including The Letters of Robert Lowell and The Dolphin Letters, 1970–1979: Elizabeth Hardwick, Robert Lowell, and Their Circle. Copyright © 2023 Yale University