Whew. It's already Wednesday again! They say time flies when you're having fun but I say time flies when you're getting older but whatever.
Once again, this is a random poem I found on the poetry foundation. I've read it a couple of times and I'm kind of scratching my head. I'd love to hear what the Covers have to say!
Autumn
by Zack Gorczynski
Autumn is always too early.
The peonies are still blooming, bees
are still working out ideal states,
and the cold bayonets of autumn
suddenly glint in the fields and the wind
rages.
What is its origin? Why should it destroy
dreams, arbors, memories?
The alien enters the hushed woods,
anger advancing, insinuating plague;
woodsmoke, the raucous howls
of Tatars.
Autumn rips away leaves, names,
fruit, it covers the borders and paths,
extinguishes lamps and tapers; young
autumn, lips purpled, embraces
mortal creatures, stealing
their existence.
Sap flows, sacrificed blood,
wine, oil, wild rivers,
yellow rivers swollen with corpses,
the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche,
gush.
Breathless autumn, racing, blue
knives glinting in her glance.
She scythes names like herbs with her keen
sickle, merciless in her blaze
and her breath. Anonymous letter, terror,
Red Army.
My initial thoughts:
The opening stanza sets the tone for almost a romantic tone. It's quite wistful in a way, lamenting why Autumn is already here. We experience the same tone in stanza three when the author declares 'Autumn rips away leaves, names, / fruit, it covers the borders and paths.'
But there's also this fantastical or supernatural undertone to it. We first experience it in the second half of stanza two when 'The alien enters the hushed woods.' While I enjoy the image of a green Martian strolling through my local woods, I'm assuming that's not what the author intended. Is the alien a metaphor for Autumn? I quite like that. It's an unusual way to explore the differences between the seasons.
What are your thoughts?
The entire poem is written from the perspective of a Turkish woman survivor, probably a farmer or peasant given the timeline of the lexicon being used, during the invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II into the borders of Turkey, more than likely during the events of the deportation of the Crimean Tatars. There are keywords scattered throughout this poem that help to identify this overarching theme of war and tragedy.
At first, I thought the "Autumn" in this was referencing the actual season. Kind of like the author was trying to create the setting of the poem. Later on, we read:
"Autumn rips away leaves, names,
fruit, it covers the borders and paths,
extinguishes lamps and tapers"
The author is using personification here. So we can then make the logical assumption that Autumn may very well be referencing a person/s. Towards the end of the poem, the author identifies "autumn" as a female figure by using the pronoun "she." This is when I came to the realization that "autumn" may very well be a young Turkish woman running away (Breathless autumn, racing) from Soviet soldiers (blue knives glinting in her glance) with a warning letter held in her hand (Anonymous letter, terror, Red Army).
The blue knives referencing "cold steel" which was a common material for bladed objects during this time. We know that this character is also a peasant/farmer because she wields a scythe, a tool commonly used by farmers (She scythes names like herbs with her keen sickle), more than likely using it for self-defense as she is being hunted down by the Soviet soldiers.
This entire stanza below shouts war:
"Sap flows, sacrificed blood,
wine, oil, wild rivers,
yellow rivers swollen with corpses,
the curse flowing on: mud, lava, avalanche,
gush."
What with keywords like sacrificed blood, corpses, curse flowing, etc. The line "yellow rivers swollen with corpses" is a dead giveaway because of the yellowing of skin when a body dies and becomes swollen. Because of the consistent referencing of "rivers", it could also be presumed that the setting is in or near an actual river that probably helped run a mill via hydropower before a time where electricity could reach such a small province of Turkey. The last few words "mud, lava, avalanche, gush," are all keywords to describe warfare:
Mud meaning the filth of the dead or the wet area this took place.
Lava meaning the flamethrowers that were used to burn down and scare the villagers from their homes during the deportation process.
Avalance referencing the mass of soldiers that came through.
Gush places emphasis on how many people died and as a play on words with "river."
I'm also pretty sure that the lines, "young autumn, lips purpled, embrace
mortal creatures, stealing their existence" is referencing children that were butchered during the massacre. Especially with the combination of the phrases "lips purpled" and "stealing their existence."
The contrast between "blue knives" and "cold bayonets" definitely plays into the overarching theme of an invasion during wartime.
Below is a link to the Wikipedia article I found that helped me analyze this poem more thoroughly. I used the keywords "Red Army" and "Tartars" from the poem to find it in a Google search.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deportation_of_the_Crimean_Tatars