Patrick Lane, IN MEMORIAM

With sadness, JC read today of the death of master poet Patrick Lane.

JC, writing as A. Garnett Weiss, created a cento for her manuscript which uses lines from individual poems in Lane’s collection of 40 poems, “Winter.”

She offers the poem here to pay homage to Lane’s legacy and in his memory.

In that certain darkness decided

He is the dream man, given to her by the snow;
a sharp, lean hero, immaculate and alone
where the weak have no place.

She knows their flesh is a repetition.
It is the story about grief and music
scored with myriad tiny cuts
so perfect no one will ever know
to listen to their singing, the voices,
the shouts, the lamentation after
their wild impossible crying for more.

Everything is ready to begin
that impossible dream of beauty
because it resembles the unfolding we call love.

Cento gloss: In that certain darkness decided
Title: Patrick Lane, “Winter 4”*
Line 1: Patrick Lane, “Winter 40”
Line 2: Patrick Lane, “Winter 43”
Line 3: Patrick Lane, “Winter 32”
Line 4: Patrick Lane, “Winter 36”
Line 5: Patrick Lane, “Winter 35”
Line 6: Patrick Lane, “Winter 8”
Line 7: Patrick Lane, “Winter 21”
Line 8: Patrick Lane, “Winter 10”
Line 9: Patrick Lane, “Winter 42”
Line 10: Patrick Lane, “Winter 11”
Line 11: Patrick Lane, “Winter 6”
Line 12: Patrick Lane, “Winter 22”
Line 13: Patrick Lane, “Winter 29”

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