Poem as Parable

Consider this untitled poem:

  What calm
  in the way the gravedigger 
  
  unbuttons his coat
  and the frozen
  
  ground below him
  How it longs to be opened
  
  You learn not to wave
  at the soldier
  
  coatless always
  wandering the roads and fields
  
  He’s home now
  for good
  
  says his mother
  Yes  home now
  
  for good
  say the wolves
  
    Tommy Archuleta, Susto 
    (The Center for Literary Publishing, Colorado State University, 2023)

The pages of Susto offer short poems in short lines, often unfurling in couplets, offering spare glimpses into loss, grief, mystery. “What calm” arrives three pages into this remarkable collection. On first read, I felt that something elusive, ghostly, had passed through me, but what? I read the poem again. And then again.

So much here, so briefly. On a day so cold the ground is frozen, a gravedigger, instead of hugging himself for warmth, “unbuttons his coat.” Why this gesture? Is it because, like the ground of the grave, which “longs to be opened,” the gravedigger is opening himself to the cold of grief that opens in a survivor relinquishing someone to burial?

And what to make of the soldier who appears next, “coatless always / wandering the roads and fields”? Three times cold has gripped this frugal tale—in the frozen ground, in the gravedigger’s unbuttoned coat, in the soldier’s coatless state. And then this: “He’s home now / for good // says his mother.”

Home now for good.

No need to wave at this soldier; he’s the spirit of a man brought home from war for burial. No wonder “You learn not to wave” at him.

The wolves who appear at the poem’s closing clinch the meaning of home now for good. They know the scent of death. Wolves once followed the trail of ancient hunters. They knew the hunt would culminate in death.

For me the wonder of this poem—of the other parable-poems in Susto—is how spare the poet’s tale, how richly the lines open to repeated readings, how evocative the language of loss.

About the Author

Santa Fe’s seventh Poet Laureate, appointed in January 2024, Tommy Archuleta is a poet, musician, mental health therapist, and substance abuse counselor for the New Mexico Corrections Department. Susto was featured in the November/December 2023 issue of Poets & Writers as part of the magazine’s annual 5 Over 50. Archuleta holds a lectureship at the New Mexico School for the Arts. He lives and writes on the Cochiti Reservation.

Note

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Susto is available here ⇒