My Little Poem: Shadows

"Dank fens of cedar" by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

Hello, Poetry Friend

I am a Texan. Therefore I love shade.

I know every shadowed parking spot in town, and how those shadows shift with the hour and the season. The sight of a single cloud in the sky’s “blinding sunlit blue” thrills me. So this poem by Frederick Goddard Tuckerman, with its “hemlock-branches gray,” “deep leaves,” and “gray shadows” found a cozy spot in my poem-loving heart.

Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray

Dank fens of cedar; hemlock-branches gray
With trees and trail of mosses, wringing-wet;
Beds of the black pitchpine in dead leaves set
Whose wasted red has wasted to white away;
Remnants of rain and droppings of decay, –
Why hold ye so my heart, nor dimly let
Through your deep leaves the light of yesterday,
The faded glimmer of a sunshine set?
Is it that in your darkness, shut from strife,
The bread of tears becomes the bread of life?
Far from the roar of day, beneath your boughs
Fresh griefs beat tranquilly, and loves and vows
Grow green in your gray shadows, dearer far
Even than all lovely lights and roses are?

– Frederick Goddard Tuckerman

The brillance of this poem is that two-thirds of it is questions—all unanswered. I would be tempted to put the second one at the end, but Tuckerman sticks in the middle: “Is it that in your darkness, shut from strife, / The bread of tears becomes the bread of life?” He isn’t sure.

He places this non-surety at the sextet turn of this sonnet, lines 9 and 10. A lesser poet would have answered this crucial question. Tuckerman follows it up with a third question that takes up the last four lines. So we end with the poet and his questions, with shadow.

Which makes me want to write a letter to this poet who died in 1873.

Dear Fred,

Even if this had not been the hottest summer on record, I would’ve loved your poem. This forest fen I’ve been in for a decade is awfully shadowy, but I’m finally settling in, settling down. I often miss the roses. Sometimes I even miss the sunshine. I do not miss the roar of days.

I don’t ask as many questions as much as I used to, and I don’t know whether that’s evidence of green or gray. You remind me it’s no sin to ask. It's no virtue to answer.

There’s a dank fen of cedar not too terribly far away from my house. The last time I sat there was two Easters ago, when I was too sad to go to church. That place still holds my heart.

Wishing you all the shade you need,
Megan 

Poetry Journal

• Read ol’ Fred’s poem about shadows.

• Jot down what you notice, what you like, what you don’t, what questions you have, and at least one way in which the poem speaks to you.

• Read the poem again, aloud (if you didn’t the first time). Is there anything you notice this time that you want to add to your journal?

• Write your own poem with questions. Leave them unanswered. If you like, email me what you write.

Happy poeming!

Megan