Delmarva Review: Song, Luminescence Leaving by Judith McCombs

Author’s Note: “Song, Luminescence” comes from the unheard words that came one morning, long after Dad had died in Florida, and Mother in Oregon. I was sitting out back, very early one morning, when I saw glow-worms glimmering in the grass.

Song, Luminescence Leaving
     for my parents, who traveled far

Before the light, the darkness slowly filling
abandoned voices welling in your ear
the shallow neuron pathways still are spilling
chords and stories here and almost here 

Above your eyes the constellations dimming
they founder in the ever-deeper dawn
and in the shadows glowworms slowly glimmering
your phosphorescence flickers and is gone

All you know began with their dark dreaming
shy caress, and sweetly lulling breath
All your songs are stolen from her seeming
your silence from the silences he left 

You cannot stop one hour’s slowest spinning
their thousand roads are photos you can’t name
their leavings taught you loss is a beginning
their contours map the Odysseys you claim

Say goodbye to luminescence leaving
say goodbye to shadow voices gone
Take the stories’ doubt and yet believing
take the roadways fading into dawn 

♦

Maryland poet Judith McCombs grew up nomadic, in a geodetic surveyor’s family. She has won Maryland Arts Council’s highest Award for poetry. A former Detroit Arts College professor and visual artist, she founded Kensington Row Bookshop’s Poetry Readings in Maryland and is vice president of Federal Poets. Her poems have appeared in Delmarva Review, Potomac Review (Poetry Prize), Saranac Review, Innisfree, Nimrod (Neruda Award), Poetry, Shenandoah (Graybeal-Gowen Prize); and The Habit of Fire: Poems Selected & New.

Delmarva Review publishes evocative original poetry,  fiction, and nonfiction selected from thousands of new submissions during the year. Designed to encourage outstanding writing from the region and beyond, the literary journal is nonprofit and independent. Support comes tax-deductible contributions, sales, and a grant from Talbot Arts with funds from the Maryland State Arts Council. Website: www.DelmarvaReview.org