Photo courtesy of Ed Baker
This post contains some poems and photographs in tribute to Theodore Enslin, by fellow poets and friends Ed Baker, David Giannini, and John Phillips, as well as a poem by the poet himself. In addition, there is also a link to a brief obituary (and an excerpt from same) and a recording of Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 18, No. 2, which Theodore Enslin requested be played in lieu of a memorial service or other type of observance.
“let me tell you a
"story
"about that chair you’re sitting in
"I call it The Low Down Chair
“it was many years ago now.
“She was a Catholic girl.
“Very pretty.”
& then he took a snap of me w my
little Kodak Instan-matic.
“In THAT LOW DOWN CHAIR
“SHE
“& It was many years ago
“& lots of poems-into-books came
“afterwards.”
“and the cane?”
“It’s one that I made.
“I make them. Sell them.
“That’s how I got to be so rich.
“Selling canes. Selling poems.”
a short time later
we walked his property to that Old Pine
“There’s a story in that Old Pine
“You sure take a lot of pictures.
"I’m hungry. You hungry?
“I know a place in town. Great Haddock Chowder
“Ever eat a Bloomin' Onion? Big as a basketball.”
At the diner he flirted w the cute waitress
who
knew his ways & means
made Love with spoon in chowder
Ed Baker
Here are three poems by David Giannini:
THREE POEMS to TED (THROUGH the YEARS)
1 1. AUDUBON
SANCTUARY, WELLFLEET
Beyond sanctuary
the sea
“so quick to feel surprise and shame”
of waves at
crest that suspense
suspension where
the soul feels
the soul feels its mirrors mirrors
of salt of our
bodies of our blood
of instants of
the moon of the tides
spreading us to
grains and with
“The earth under
our feet we are
not asked to begin
nowhere”—
we stand on
belief and sand
then step this
way to the marsh.
Maybe if you tell it the wind will stop maybe
the long wind if you tell will stop banging its
bells. Maybe the wind will stop if you slip
into the wind silence that wants in maybe
bell longing will come. Maybe your silence
lives inside the will of the wind maybe in
long bells hiding from ruthless interims
of eye. Maybe if you spy them the bells will
stop maybe the long bells if you spy them
will stop if you will. Maybe if you slip into
the silence the wind that wants in will spy
a forest being maybe many still trees. Maybe
if you feel it being tall pine air maybe the
being will be silent ruthless interims of ear.
3.
To age
and move uneasily
to become
more
adventuresome
in mind (assuming
the
necessary
foolishness,
the course
and
curse of it)
despite macular de-
generation
and
the falling
to ground, then
abed,
and the final jit-
tery track of
being
what you always were,
Ted.
David Giannini
A poem and a photograph of Theodore Enslin by John Phillips:
Photo courtesy of John Phillips
LETTER
for Ted Enslin
The daffodils
are
just
coming into
bloom
Still
a number of
croci
& a kind of
blue
scilla
I found
years ago
in an
abandoned garden
a swallow just
fluttered in
23.4.05
John Phillips
Here is an excerpt from an obituary in the Daily Bulldog, in Farmington, Maine:
Anyone who knew Ted will be familiar with his desire to have the last word -- so here it is:
"In lieu of a memorial service or other observances, I would prefer that concerned friends in thinking of me might listen to or perform, the Brahms Intermezzo, Opus 118 #2, whenever it might occur to them as appropriate. To me, that one short piece sums up what I might have hoped to achieve in a life in art."
The Way Desideratum
Goodbye, but not
goodbye again.
I do not leave you--
land behind me
in the land ahead.
I step the curve,
and curve enough
returns.
Theodore Enslin
Photo courtesy of Ed Baker
---------------------------------
from the thin curve
of the sickle moon...
one leaf falls
Issa
translated by David G. Lanoue
best,
Don
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