The boy in the white flannel gown

Halley’s Comet

by Stanley Kunitz

 

Miss Murphy in first grade

wrote its name in chalk

across the board and told us

it was roaring down the stormtracks

of the Milky Way at frightful speed

and if it wandered off its course

and smashed into the earth

there’d be no school tomorrow.

A red-bearded preacher from the hills

with a wild look in his eyes

stood in the public square

at the playground’s edge

proclaiming he was sent by God

to save every one of us,

even the little children.

“Repent, ye sinners!” he shouted,

waving his hand-lettered sign.

At supper I felt sad to think

that it was probably

the last meal I’d share

with my mother and my sisters;

but I felt excited too

and scarcely touched my plate.

So mother scolded me

and sent me early to my room.

The whole family’s asleep

except for me. They never heard me steal

into the stairwell hall and climb

the ladder to the fresh night air.

Look for me, Father, on the roof

of the red brick building

at the foot of Green Street—

that’s where we live, you know, on the top floor.

I’m the boy in the white flannel gown

sprawled on this coarse gravel bed

searching the starry sky,

waiting for the world to end.

For a variety of reasons, I haven’t been doing much reading or writing lately.  Life, with its myriad of methods, getting in the way.  I woke up this morning thinking about this poem and this is not to suggest that I’m a big reader of poetry.  Oh, I try.  I see a poem once in a while and am motivated to buy the book.  The Collected Poems of Stanley Kunitz (1910-2006) is the latest example of that.  Let’s face it:  poetry is not an “easy read.”  It makes you pause; it makes you think.  The poems in this collection are perhaps more accessible but nevertheless, masterful.

If I could write only one thing as good and true as “Halley’s Comet” in my life, I would be contented.  In several short stanzas, Kunitz touches on everything, doesn’t he?  The wonder of life, the insistence of religion, the simple existence of a boy:  his supper, his flannel gown, his throbbing lack of a father.  Kunitz’s own father committed suicide just six weeks before his birth.  His stepfather died when he was fourteen and these absences are a common touchstone in his work.  To me, that’s art.  Making personal the great mysteries, in such a way that they become a bit less mysterious to everyone else.  Even if just for a moment, just for the length of a novel.  Or a poem. 

I’m thinking this morning about what my “themes” are; what are the touchstones to which I return time and again for inspiration?  Can I tap into that awestruck child, his simple yearning as he waits for the streak of light in the sky?