"Almost" | by Marc Harshman
The sky is condensed to wind, to air,
to a rush-roar on the ear
as I climb
out of the thick green
of the Cherry River Valley
From the noise of the future
kingdom-come-now
I've traveled,
up from Sam Black Church
to Leivasy to Nettie to here,
by luck and by motor,
by foot and by grace
I have come to here
to hear, and see.
To see ... from kingdom come
to forever now,
from Black Mountain and Cranberry to Caesar Mountain.
And Caesar Augustus and all
his warriors never saw the like of these:
Red Lick and Viney, Cheat and Kennison.
Cloud-green and shadowed purple, the mountains drift
across the summer afternoon,
here and there fractured with bright, ruined castles
of stone crags and caprocks,
from sand shoals lapped by the Silurian oceans
become sandstone and quartzite.
Chirrup and slow-sliding whistles, cough and scream, the birds
are busy with gossip and discovery, with governance and lust
blue-headed vireos, black-throated green warblers, redstarts,
and the hawks' Olympic skating duet on the updrafts.
The others, the bobcat, bear, weasel and porcupine
you'll not likely see unless
you lose yourself
in the blueberry fields, the huckleberry barrens.
Still, they'll find you more often than not.
The world will go on without me but for these few moments I am
sitting on top of the world, a simple summer's day, away
from the busy rush of roads, the scrolling of screens,
almost off the map, almost heaven, almost where
sky meets eternity, and eternity almost whispers
its secrets in this teasing kiss of breeze.
Almost. Almost. Almost.
ABOUT
Marc Harshman’s “Woman in Red Anorak,” Blue Lynx Prize winner, was published in 2018 by Lynx House Press. His fourteenth children’s book, “Fallingwater. . . ,” co-author, Anna Smucker, was published by Roaring Brook/Macmillan. He is co-winner of the 2019 Allen Ginsberg Poetry Award and his Thanksgiving poem, “Dispatch from the Mountain State,” was recently printed in The New York Times. His poems have been anthologized by Kent State University, the University of Iowa, University of Georgia, and the University of Arizona. Appointed in 2012, he is the seventh poet laureate of West Virginia.
NOVEMBER 2021 ISSSUE of WestVirginiaVille.com
FREE SUBSCRIBE: WestVirginiaVille.substack.com
1) EDITORS/NOTE: Allen Ginsberg & Bonfires | The Sky & Eternity | Manchin & Byrd
2) CHARACTERS, PART 1: A music video about how I never slept with Allen Ginsberg
3) CHARACTERS, PART 2: Allen Ginsberg speaks up in West Virginia
4) Q&A: “Where Sky Meets Eternity” documents an extraordinary artistic hand-off
5) POEM FROM DOCUMENTARY: “A Year of Few Apples” by Kirk Judd
6) POEM FROM DOCUMENTARY: “Almost” by Marc Harshman
7) DOGGEREL: “The Ballad of Bobby and Joe“
8) CARTOON: A funny thing happened to Joe Manchin on his way to Heaven …
9) CLIMATE CRISIS: Taking the measure of climate change in three short videos
10) MEMOIR: “Memory of a Waitress“
11) SPOKEN/WORD: “The Cold Visitor,” n Multimedia Poem by Bobby Lee Messer
RELATED
Q&A: “Where Sky Meets Eternity” documents an extraordinary artistic hand-off in the WV hills: nov.4.2021: The documentary “Where Sky Meets Eternity” profiles an ambitious, offbeat art project from deep in the West Virginia hills, as 12 artists bounced off each other’s work in often surprising, unexpected ways.
POETICS: The Art of Being West Virginia’s Poet Laureate: We sit down — digitally — with longtime West Virginia poet laureate Marc Harshman and quiz him about his “Dispatch From the Mountain State” in the NYTimes and the obligation of a poetry to be the sort of “political being” described by W.H. Auden.
PARADIGM SHIFTING: Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s Life in the Trenches of Poetry: feb24.2021: Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s storied life came to a close this Monday, Feb. 22, 2021, at the remarkable age of 101. I was blessed to interview him in 1995. What this “ageless radical and true bard” had to say — not to mention his poetry — remains timely and pertinent.
POEM: “Haymaking”: feb20.2021: ‘We cut, rake, and bale / till the sun goes down and the dew settles on the fields, / then start again next morning once the dew burns off …’
POEM | “Nous Celeron” by Douglas John Imbrogno: aug14.2020: ‘Don’t you, Nous Céleron, wish to lay down your arms? Enter the Ohio’s cool darkness, or the Chinodahichetha! Sounding out each syllable as a Wyandotte might utter them …
