“In Memory of Ted”
Henry Braun sent a comment to the post of November 23rd, my obit for Ted Enslin. Unhappily the comment box strips text of all formatting, so in order to be able to read the poem-homage as intended, I’ll post it here this morning:
In Memory of Ted
We are given weight
separate from the earth
as the first miracle,
a certain leave
to rise like the stones
in a thawing road.
There are directions
pointed to by growing
in the flowering branch
and the equal root for those
who have tried and tired,
who disbelieve the sunlight.
Because it is lonely
poets like Ted Enslin
wait at the mouths of graves
for our coming home.
URL : http://www.henrybraun.net
& here a further comment/poem from Herschel Silverman :
FAREWELL
TED
ENSLIN
MAINE
MAN
POET’S – POET
COMPOSER
HOMEOPATHIC –
PAL
ALL
WAYS
MENTOR
DEAR
FRIEND
THESE
FIFTY
YEARS
LOVE
HERSCH
But there are no poets “like” Ted Enslin…patiently spending his life ordering time into music.
It was time for him to go and yet we hate that he’s gone. –Martha & Basil
left photo is of Ted walking me about his property
(August 8, 23,000.. just out of the picture to the right is where that old oak tree is that is sketched by Speed Gold
on cover of his FROM NEAR THE GREAT PINE (1988)
(last piece in the book):
Although I have looked
at the great pine
tree
many times before,
I have never noticed
one space between
its upper branches
-like a pond-
waves, the branches
either side of it.
photo on left is he holding copy of my Shrike.
I didn’t know Ted was gone. I hardly knew him yet knew him fondly, while marveling at his mildness, his miraculously quiet, undemonstrative precision of utterance. Wonderful commemorations by Hersch Silverman and Ed Baker, who I don’t, and by my longtime dear, gentle friend, Henry Braun,
haunted now by “a certain leave/to rise like the stones/in a thawing road.”
I first met Ted at my cousin’s farm where Ted was helping clean a chicken barn between broods. I offered him a ride home after finishing and on the way, a too short distance really, the talk turned to what is the right occupation for a poet and his work. I remember.