Mike Robinson introduced me to Kevin Miller way back in 2006. I’ve written about him a couple of times, but I just finished Vanish, his latest work, which is, as it turns out, already four years old. The work begins with a quote from Theodore Roethke, “What falls away is always. And is near.” The Past falls away, but it is always near, and many of these poems seem devoted to those who have passed away and to recovering memories of them and to death itself.
“Field Work” seems to tie in directly with the Roethke quote that begins the work.
Field Work
The five-year-old grandson carries
the short shovel, says, I am a worker.
His hands pulse red in the cold,
and he pounds at the earth
proud to turn soil. He has no notion
Of entering the house where brothers
read and play cars. This one will bury me,
his brother will know what to say,
the third will keep mischief alive.
The girl child from another city
will stand with the boys, her song
long on tradition steeped in rain.
When I threw dirt on my father's box,
showers softened the knock
of rocks on its pine door. The windows
in the house of the dead have no glass,
the music their lives make lifts curtains.
The far field knows no distance.
Roethke’s last volume of poetry was entitled The Far Field and was published in 1964, the year of his death (and the year I was signed up for his class). It’s a fairly long poem, but these short excerpts seem to refer directly to the last line of Field Work.
I learned not to fear infinity,
The far field, the windy cliffs of forever,
The dying of time in the white light of tomorrow,
The wheel turning away from itself,
The sprawl of the wave,
The on-coming water.
…
I am renewed by death, thought of my death,
The dry scent of a dying garden in September,
The wind fanning the ash of a low fire.
What I love is near at hand,
Always, in earth and air.
I’ll have to admit I’ve never thought of my dead father while playing with my grandchildren or great-grandchildren, but it’s certainly a connection we all consider, particularly as we age. At 83, I like to think my father lives on in me, and I hope that part of me will live on in my grandchildren when I’m gone.
In Vanish, Miller constantly reminds us of life’s ups and downs and the memories that live with us long after those ups and downs have passed.
You beautifully capture this luminous book of poems. I am only at the cusp of 70, but I, too, have been thinking about mortality and the swift passage of time.
I am struck with envy to hear you took a class from Roethke. But of course you did! In a dark time…
Unfortunately, I was signed up for his class, but he died a month before it began. I ended up taking David Wagoner, Henry Reed, and Vernon Watkins for the 3-quarter sequence. They were all interesting teachers, but I still consider not getting Roethke’s class after waiting three years one of life’s great disappointments.