.

Watching

It hardly matters what I’d read
(Another plangent exposé
Of something solid in the world
That bit by horrid bit unfurled
Into a source of pending dread),
It brought to mind an image grey
With time, a moment hid away
So long and lost I’d thought it dead:

A fire down the street; the din
Of sirens drawing yawning men
And bathrobed women; there the crowd
Stood watching as the smoky shroud
Rose dark to where the stars had been.
And someone muttered now and then
Or said a prayer or wondered when
The roof would finally fall in.

.

.

Jeffrey Essmann is an essayist and poet living in New York. His poetry has appeared in numerous magazines and literary journals, among them Agape Review, America Magazine, Dappled Things, the St. Austin Review, U.S. Catholic, Grand Little Things, Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, and various venues of the Benedictine monastery with which he is an oblate. He is editor of the Catholic Poetry Room page on the Integrated Catholic Life website.

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12 Responses

  1. Warren Bonham

    A very well-executed and sobering parable to remind us that our house is ablaze and that the roof will fall in. I know I’m not one of the yawning men rushing in to put out the fire but hopefully, I’m not just watching and muttering either.

    Reply
  2. Roy E. Peterson

    That must have been like the Notre Dame Cathedral burning down in Paris, although that was seen around 6:30 pm. I had to look up “plangent,” meaning mournful and horrible. What a perfect word. You brought home the dreadful feelings of a fire burning a building.

    Reply
  3. Stephen M. Dickey

    I second Warren’s opinion. I know what’s going, I can predict what will happen, and so little of the news is news. This piece is thus poignant for me in addressing what is for me the rage generated by the watching.

    Reply
  4. Jeff Eardley

    Jeffrey, we had the “Grenfell Tower” disaster over here that killed 72 poor souls in a high rise tower in 2017. It haunts us to this day as I recall, we watched the whole thing unfold on live tv. Your poem is a most reflective piece on our fragility. Thank you and great to share today with you and Roy.

    Reply
  5. Paul A. Freeman

    I’ve been writing for my daughter about two years I spent in Sudan donkeys’ years ago. It’s amazing how many memories are reignited and how other memories from elsewhere are more easily dredged up.

    Thanks for a poem that explores this phenomenon, Jeffrey.

    Reply
  6. James A. Tweedie

    Jeffrey,

    An apt metaphor with application to many things other than itself.

    Yet also a biting commentary on human nature akin to disinterested staring as we pass a serious automobile accident or watching a million-dollar mansion slide into the Pacific Ocean in Southern California.

    Not quite the same when it is our home, our car, or our family.

    A concise, well-crafted, disturbing, provoking, mind and soul-stirring poem.

    Reply
  7. Joseph S. Salemi

    We are all voyeuristic when it comes to major disasters. Recall the films “Titanic,” and “The Poseidon Adventure,” and “The Towering Inferno.”

    The interesting thing here is that Essmann makes a connection between reading or watching our godawful news, and then remembering a burning house. This kind of summoned-up memory is like a dream, and in dreams a burning house is a very bad sign.

    Reply
  8. Cynthia Erlandson

    I think I sense this poem subtly speaking of metaphorical, as well as literal, fires — something”bit by horrid bit unfurled / Into a source of pending dread” — foreshadowing something we know but don’t want to know? Anyway, this is beautiful, and I love your rhyme scheme!

    Reply
  9. jd

    A thought provoking poem enjoyed for
    all the well-stated reasons appearing above. Thank you, Jeffrey.

    Reply
  10. Susan Jarvis Bryant

    Jeffrey, this very cleverly composed poem has given me chills… it seems we live in a world of “yawning men / And bathrobed women” barely woken by the warning signs, then watching and waiting for… the end. I especially like the apocalyptic, “the smoky shroud / Rose dark to where the stars had been” – thank you!

    Reply
  11. Jeffrey Essmann

    Thanks so much, everyone, for your very kind appreciation of the poem. It means the world to me, coming as it does from fellow poets whose work I so much admire and from whom I have so much learned. God bless you all.

    Oh, and Cynthia: I love the rhyme scheme, too, but can claim no credit for it. I believe it’s another of my Longfellow rip-offs (or possibly Spenser).

    Reply

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