Poetry Friday: Bells

December's challenge was to write a poem about bells.  Any kind. Any theme. Any form. 

My fellow poets in our ZOOM session had amazing ideas, about clever bell metaphors, and delicate bell sounds, and astounding bell stories.  And I had nothing but the vague feeling that I was dancing on the surface of a very deep ocean. Maybe it was because the older I grow, the more I realize how much I don't know---about bells or anything else. 

So I decided to write about that not knowing (which begins with not noticing) and for my form-- 

I took the shape of this tower:

Robert A. Taft Memorial and Carillon

What does a democracy have to do

to get noticed in this town? 

 

How could I—

walking, as I do, in my city—

America’s capitol city—

not notice a hundred-foot shaft

of Tennessee marble, host

to twenty-seven pedal-struck bells?

Not notice

the bells are a carillon— 

(which must, therefore, number

more than twenty-three— 

or be deemed but a chime.)

Not notice the bourdon,

a booming seven tons of bell—

(and also the word for the droning 

largest pipe of a organ, and the word

for bumblebee, and some clever soul

pinched the word for a fizzy drink 

that will—you guessed it— get you buzzed.)

Perhaps because noticing

leads you, on and on, 

(until your ears ring.)

So I walk again to the carillon.

It is true. Solid. There. 

 

Isn’t it?  

After all, these bells

honor President Taft’s son—

(WHO?—well, he served in the Senate, 

I’m told— he sought the Presidency

three times—oh, did he?)

—now I’m on unsteady ground

again—

but—with a bit of noticing—

I see his life rang out to his fellow Senators— 

(this is the Capitol grounds, after all—

and these bells are “a summons

to integrity and courage”)

but noticing this, I feel 

a great silence—

I dig again, to ease

the unease.

Carillons, they say, rose here after war,

an echo of those in Europe

where they were exceedingly noticed,

for the Nazis (hungry for metal)

stole all the bells—(classifying their worth

from Grade A to D) melting

the most unworthy into weapons.

Bells upon bells upon bells

were heaped in Glockenfriedhöfe—

bell cemeteries. 

Oh, how that noticing, now googled,

in hot pursuit of those two words, unearths more—

that (in some cemeteries and times past)

a bell was tucked in with the deceased, in case….

well, you know…someone didn’t

notice they weren’t really dead,

weren’t really lost—

are we?

I walk back to the carillon,

to what we command,

(by Senate Concurrent Resolution 25)

to be sounded with song every July Fourth,

at two in the afternoon.

I’ve never noticed it, you know—

not the *carillonist (chosen

by the Architect of the Capitol)

issuing forth his yearly Anthem,

his America the Beautiful—

wasn't she?

only

the hourly strike,

the daily clamor,

the steady keeping of time—

and not even that, if my mind

is elsewhere—

 

            ----Sara Lewis Holmes (all rights reserved) 

*Carillonist is the gender-neutral term.  The current player is male, so he can be called a carillonneur.  

I'm guessing he gets into the tower by this official looking back door: 

My poetry sisters are posting about bells here:

Tricia

Mary Lee

Liz

Laura

Kelly

Andi

Tanita

If you’d like to write to our theme for next month, we are going with “poetry inspired by something overheard.” Our friend Susan Thomsen at Chicken Spaghetti has done several of these as a form of “found poem,” and it seemed like a fun challenge. Here's a link to one of Susan’s poems.

Poetry Friday is hosted today at Carol's Corner.