"First Fall" by Maggie Smith: calebgreene.micro.blog
@calebgreene So good. Feels like it both draws from and gently subverts Hopkin’s “Spring and Fall.” Especially:
Hopkins:
Now no matter, child, the name:
Sórrow’s springs áre the same.
Smith:
Fall is when the only things you know
because I’ve named them begin to end.
Hopkins:
Ah! ás the heart grows older
It will come to such sights colder
By and by, nor spare a sigh
Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie;
And yet you will weep and know why.
Smith:
The first time you see
something die, you won’t know it might
come back. I’m desperate for you
to love the world because I brought you here.
@calebgreene Pretty incredible to have two outstanding poems, and then for Smith’s to have the additional layer of responding to Hopkins. I really love the idea that in First Fall the child assumes death is the end but has yet for the real world to reveal the resurrection. It’s first Fall, but then comes Spring.
Also, “Though worlds of wanwood leafmeal lie” has got to be up there on the list of finest phrases turned in English.