To commemorate the fiftieth year today since the death of the essential poet & dear friend Paul Blackburn, I’m posting the following memorial & tribute by Jackson Mac Low, which will also appear in the new Book of the Americas, co-edited by Javier Taboada and me.
32ND LIGHT POEM: IN MEMORIAM PAUL BLACKBURN
[died September 13, 1971]
Let me choose the kinds of light
to light the passing of my friend
Paul Blackburn a poet
A pale light like that of a winter dawn
or twilight
or phosphorescence
is not enough to guide him in his passing
but enough for us to see
shadowily his last gaunt figure
how he showed himself to us
last July in Michigan
when he made us think he was recovering
knowing the carcinoma
arrested in his esophagus
had already spread to his bones
How he led us on
I spent so little time with him
thinking he'd be with us now
Amber light of regret
stains my memories of our days
at the poetry festival in Allendale Michigan
How many times I hurried elsewhere
rather than spending time with him
in his room 3 doors from me
I will regret it the rest of my life
I must learn to live
with the regret
dwelling on the moments
Paul & I shared
in July as in years before
tho amber light dims to umber
& I can hardly see
his brave emaciated face
I see Paul standing in the umber light
cast on his existence
by his knowing that his death was fast approaching
Lightning blasts the guilty dream
& I see him
reading in the little auditorium
& hear him
confidently reading
careful of his timing
anxious not to take
more than his share of reading time
filling our hearts with rejoicing
seeing him alive
doing the work he was here for
seemingly among us now
I for one was fooled
thinking he was winning the battle
so I wept that night for joy
As I embraced him after he read
I shook with relief & love
I was so happy to hear you read again
If there were a kind of black light
that suddenly cd reveal to us
each other's inwardness
what wd I have seen that night
as I embraced you
with tears of joy
I keep remembering the bolt of lightning
that slashed the sky at twilight
over the Gulf of St. Lawrence
& turned an enchanted walk with Bici
following Angus Willie's Brook
thru mossy woods nearly to its mouth
to a boot-filling scramble up thru thorn bush & spruce tangle
Beatrice guided me & I was safe
at the end of August on Cape Breton Island
but when Jerry telephoned me of your death
the lightning that destroyed
the illusion you were safe
led thru dreadful amber light
not to friendly car light
& welcoming kitchen light
but the black light of absence
not ultraviolet light
revealing hidden colors
but revelatory light that is no light
the unending light of the realization
that no light will ever light your bodily presence again
Now your poems' light is all
The unending light of your presence
in the living light of your voice
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