Ami Kaye reviews
Something
knows the Moment
By Scott Owens
Something Knows the Moment is by far the largest canvas Scott
Owens has worked on. This time around he ventures into sacrosanct
territory
as he tackles our very foundations of belief. This poetry collection
articulates our innermost conflicts about the subject. Owens plies his talent
with a heightened sense of language and examines what he embraces as well as
what he repudiates. He understands the disconnect between
religious texts and their imperfect interpretations, and the limitations of
theology as a whole which he explores with honesty and compassion,
characteristic traits of Owens as a writer. Early in the book (from “Having
His Hands Before Him”) we feel the emotional impact of “God had a son,” “…so with his silence/he nailed him to a
tree/so with the shadow of his hand/he took him back/and with his long spine/he
lay down beside him/and wept deep/into the hands before him.” The
book’s title comes from the poem “Common Ground,” written to his brother, which
ponders the extent and allowances of love:
“I do
not believe God will bend
to
kiss this mouth. I do not believe
the
wine will turn to blood. But something
knows
the moment of sunflower,
the
time of crow’s open wing,
the
span of moss growing on rock,
and
water washing it away.”
Owens
furthers his quest in “Covenant,” as the
speaker tries to comprehend the
immensity of belief. We see how the origin of life is connected to its
nomenclature. Owens’ natural love of words is apparent in “Learning the
Names,” “…without reason or rhyme but just/ the joy of weight on his tongue.”
At such vital moments, Owens reminds us he is a poet. We feel the visceral
thrust in “Original Sin”:
“I opened
my
brother’s body as I opened
the
land to plant this seed
of
knowing.”
Readers
of Owens’ previous books will feel the shift in poetic vision in this one. Deft
and masterful, the expository tone and structure takes an exponential leap. “The Dream of St. Francis” reads like a
meditation on a text, its style is pure and luminous:
“It
started with the hungry look of stars,
wind a
trembling lip, earth
a
field of mouths closing on air.
For
all I gave I thought that God
would
show me the way, give me the means
to
make my life a sacrifice.
He
gave me nothing but pierced hands,
a
dream of the world in need.
All I
had left was myself.
I gave
my hands to doves, shadow wings
incapable
of flight.”
This
collection shows a maturing of the poetic craft; it combines superb poetic
compression and imagery. In poems like “Evolution,” Owens achieves a lyric
intensity that is startling and compelling:
“Reaching
out to the people she loves
she
feels nothing but the light around them.
She
no longer knows the imperfections of face,
hand,
breast. When she tries to speak
she
finds her mouth can only make music.
If
she could shed this skin, her body
would
burst into flight, her wings cut the sky
like
sharp limbs tossed erratic in wind.”
For
a topic with enough gravitas to potentially weigh the book down, ample moments
of audacious humor are provided by poems
such as “Now Hiring Holy Angels,” where
a recruitment call reads “Must
have own halo and be willing to relocate,” and states, deadpan, at the end
of the list, “Salary: None. Benefits to die for.” Other poems
like “For those Grown Tired of Angels,” make a playful wisdom accessible to the
reader.
Whereas
in “Art of War,” the speaker’s voice mirrors our frustration “You’d think thousands of years/of
civilization would be enough/to make practice unneeded,” the sensuous and
emotionally charged “Saint Sebastian’s Widow” echoes a passion often found in
the ecstatic poets like Rumi, Hafiz and Mirabai:
“I
was old
had
been alone too long, had forgotten
how
beautiful a man’s chest could be,
the
soft thatch of hair, small-boned
ribs
pressing against the flesh,
curving
around the heart.”
“…I
rushed to your side, watched your back
swell
with air, held your face in my hands,
ran
my fingers through your hair.
I
wanted to lick the sweat from your brow,
suck
the chill from your spine.”
“In
the Cathedral of Fallen Trees” layers
meaning, poetic language and some beautiful visuals. While Owens’ previous
works have often employed unembellished speech, this collection kicks it up a
notch. Here we find an enhanced tonal structure as music and image meld
together:
“He sat down
beneath
the arches of limbs reaching
over
him, felt the light spread
through
stained glass windows of leaves,
saw
every stump as a silent altar,
each
branch a pulpit’s tongue.”
Owens
thinks about souls and where they will go, what they will do. In “Post Mortem,”
the speaker cogitates “Maybe we all get
to the place we believe.” Different beliefs are called into play “Hindus come back./ Buddhists achieve
Nirvana.“ “… Bad ones/ sit on thorns,
turn on roasting spits,/scream against their own minds’/hellish inventions.”
He goes on to speak of his own reaction to death when the time comes. In
“Resistance” the speaker refuses to
go gently into the night, raging against it:
“…I’ll
argue the time is not right,
a
mistake has been made. I’ll call
names,
scream embarrassing insults,
then
dig fingers into the underside
of
the chair, clamp teeth on anything
that
comes near, slam my head
against
their chin, the bridge of their nose.”
In
the end, after the individual journeys are made, it all comes down to a
personal faith, whatever it may be, and whatever direction it might take.
Owens’ yearning for that spiritual knowledge comes across in “Common Ground”:
“There is
you
lifting
me up to the limb I couldn’t reach.
This
is the faith I’ve wanted, to know
that
even now we are capable of such
sacrifice,
such willingness to love.”
Something Knows the Moment is an act of courage. The question of faith is posed and
exposed with intelligence and insight; we experience a writer trying to make
sense of the incomprehensible as Owens brings a very human perspective to this
vast, divine concern, making allowances for our foibles and failings.
Compassion underscores his words even as he challenges the hypocrisy present in
much of organized religion’s didactic beliefs and practices. This may seem far
too ambitious an undertaking for one person to achieve, but Scott Owens, in a
fine and seasoned voice, delivers.
Ami
Kaye is the author of What Hands Can Hold
(Xlibris, 2010), and Singer
of the Ragas. Her poems have
appeared in Cartier Street Review, Peony
Moon, The Argotist Online, Luciole Press, Kritya, Tinfoildresses, Bird’s Eye
Review, among others, and literary articles in Scottish Poetry Review, Diode Poetry Journal, etc. Her work was
nominated for the James B. Baker award, and included in the Soul Feathers
anthology from Indigo Dreams Publishing in partnership with Macmillan Cancer
Support. Ami Kaye publishes and manages the poetry
journal, Pirene’s Fountain, and is
currently editing two anthologies.
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