Saying Goodbye to Thomas
by Lenora Rain-Lee Good
23 Poems ~ 35 pages
Price: $29.99
Publisher: Finishing Line Press
ISBN #: 979-8-89990-036-5
To Order: Amazon.com
Reviewed by Michael Escoubas
Of the hundreds of books I have reviewed, Saying Goodbye to Thomas, is the first whose sole subject is death. And yet, the work is about so much more than mere death. It is about a relationship. A relationship that, though relatively brief, contains more depth and heart than any I have encountered. In his poem “Sunday Morning,” Wallace Stevens writes an inscrutable line, Death is the mother of beauty. In all my years of reading that line, I have yet to discern its meaning. How can death give birth to beauty? In the brief space of twenty-five poems, Lenora Rain-Lee Good chronicles a relationship that, for this reviewer, supplies at least a partial answer to Stevens’s line. What she and Thomas had relationally was beautiful in life, lovely in death, and eternal within Good’s heart and within the hearts of Thomas’s family and friends.
Good chose as her epigraph a saying by Rabindranath Tagore:
Death is not extinguishing the lamp;
It is putting out the light because the dawn has come.
These lines set forth the tone for what follows. After they met, both Lenora and Thomas Hubbard considered taking their friendship to a more intimate level. Then Thomas was diagnosed with ALS. With profound maturity they decided to repurpose their relationship with: Elder Brother of Choice (EBOS) and Younger Sister of Choice (YSOC). “Dance of the Pink Moon,” informs this choice:
Grandmother Moon, your fullness
so bright, you burned a hole
through Grandfather Sky last night.
Or, it looks that way in my photos,
There are those who would tell me
clouds changed your shape
diffused your hard, crater-pocked edges,
gave you a soft, ethereal look.
I have never loved you more
as you graciously dance for my brother
flinging our chiffon and shimmery
veils across the heavens.
You brought him such joy last night–
possibly the last night he will gaze
upon your bright fullness.
The time nears
when you will come,
dance him to the stars
but please, Grandmother,
not soon. Not soon.
Note: April’s Full Moon, named for the pink phlox that blooms then.
Good’s poetic craftsmanship comes through as she merges natural world phenomena with human experience. Human spirituality is not at odds with what is perceivable in the universe. Look for this trait as a profound thread throughout the work.
Thomas was a remarkable man with many interests and skills. Thomas worked with troubled kids within the judicial system. He was a silversmith, musician, artist, publisher, sailor, and world traveler. Most importantly for this reviewer, Thomas was a short story writer and poet. The following excerpts are from a poem entitled, “His Hands: An Ekphrastic Poem Based on a Photograph Not Yet Taken.” Good wrote this after reading poems written by Thomas:
His walk, slow, deliberate,
each foot placed just so.
Still tall, handsome in a
wild warrior way: faded copper skin,
hair cropped short, uncontrolled. He ignores
the pain as he sits, places a bag
next to him.
He smiles and nods at me.
I smile and nod back. We meet like this
Most days, never speak, never touch.
He, on his bench, me on mine.
The poem, consisting of eight total stanzas, gently unfolds the ravages of the disease that profoundly altered both their lives. The last two stanzas follow:
The hands of a man,
now crippled by ALS,
who once held a pen,
wrote essays and poems
for a better life, a better time,
of our people and their tribulations.
One day, he’ll come, sit,
And I’ll have to open the bag,
place the crackers in his hand.
But not today. Not today.
Lenora Good’s heart is poured out in her poems. It is as if she and Thomas are one spirit. She knows him intimately. “Of What Does He Dream?” says a lot about her close observation of the one she loves:
He sleeps but a few minutes
then starts talking in real words
though I can’t hear them
well enough to understand.
Sometimes he waits, as if in
conversation before he speaks again.
Other times he speaks
a few words, then quiets.
Is he dreaming? Of what?
Doesn’t seem to be nightmares.
He doesn’t fidget or
toss about or call out.
He wakes with a smile.
The pivotal poem in the collection is its title poem “Saying Goodbye to Thomas.” Although each poem has its indispensable place within the whole, this one, consisting of thirteen strophes, has much to share about Thomas’s last moments. I admit to heartfelt tears of compassion at the end.
All author proceeds from Saying Goodbye to Thomas will be equally divided between the ALS Association and Death with Dignity.
|
