Light Night
BY JAMES SCHUYLER
1

A tree, enamel needles,
owl takeoffs shake,
flapping a sound and smell
of underwing, like flags,
the clothy weight of flags.
A cone of silence stuck
with diamonds, the watch
she hunts, the frayed band
broke. It was a black night.
Dawn walked on it, the sun
set its heel. She won’t
find: a boundary of marsh,
the island in the wood.

2

Stoop, dove, horrid maid,
spread your chiffon on our
wood rot breeding the
Destroying Angel, white,
lathe-shapely, trout-lily
lovely. Taste, and have it.

3

In a rain-dusk dawn, the
clearing edge, the wood’s
fangs, the clear crystal
twist of a salival stream,
announce you hence. Tear
free of me, mountain, old
home bone, down sheer fear
tears mossed boulders
bound me, pool, deceptive,
trout-full, laugh and
chatter of finch and pecker,
gargle my liquor skin I
catch your face on. Scar
a look and leave. A rust
plush daycoach unfathers
me. A field of crosses. Let
iron clang iron.




James Schuyler’s poetry, read at face value, evokes more mood than image. Or maybe it is a bunch of quick snapshots strung together. In any case it can be at first very confusing and choppy. He has taken me by the hand is dragging me along a hall where through each door there is something different but I never have time enough to see what is there, for he just keeps pulling. But somehow I know that they are all on this hallway for a reason. The reason is just the first mystery that needs to be solved and sometimes can be with the title.
This one is Light Night. And from what I have gathered it is an image of life in a forest, which doesn’t seem to be a unique topic, but it certainly is in the way that he chooses to depict what is seen. Part 1 has a feeling of life but the possibility of desperation. Part 2, I honestly don’t know. But here is introduced a dark of image of “the Destroying Angel”. Angel of death? This feels like it begs to be closely read in a way that each thing resembles another. But if not what do these things mean? Part 3 the speaker seems to be trapped in this forest that he longs to be free of. Things that have age and wisdom now are deceptive and have chains. The angel, heaven image is brought in again at the close with, “A field of crosses.”
I like his poetry in the sense that I cannot just read once and understand. It requires time and constant re-reading, each time understanding new and different. This very well could just be the way his brain works, seemingly disjointed thoughts and images. A way to put down in words the chaos that is within to find some peace and harmony in it all. Sometimes only the author will truly understand what was intended, what was written.