Colorado poet Daiva Chesonis says one of poetry’s superpowers is its ability to stay with you. That sometimes the message or a hidden meaning can come back or reveal another layer of itself days, weeks or even months later. This week, Chesonis reads for us her poem, “Burnt Out.” The inspiration for it came after she and her husband visited Lithuania and spent some time in a cabin in the woods not far from the Belarus border.
Daiva Chesonis: We’d been in the forest for the last three days. This is an area that’s about 10 miles from the Belarus border. And as we know there’s a lot of talk and action – hopefully not too much action–at the borders, because of Ukraine. It just kind of had to do with I’m burnt out on war and greed and the struggle to just be humans to each other. It can get tiring being positive all the time. Sometimes you just have to let yourself go. This couple in the poem, are they superpowers of the world, are they Adam and Eve? I don’t know who they are. But it just was like, bit by bit, they started – they were doing something mundane, feeding the fire, and that became mechanical and then it became maniacal. And then there’s just nothing left at the end. So, I don’t know, is it a warning, a foreshadowing? I hope not. I don’t know. But this one has really moved me. It’s been a year and every time I hear the news or I’m listening about Ukraine a lot and Lithuania because they are in the line of fire. If Putin wants to go crazy, the Baltics will be next, most likely – hard to talk about that. Yeah, so that’s where that came from. It came from the pit of my stomach, not so much my heart.
Burnt Out
They built a fire
it burned hot
the way they liked it
They added log after log after log
until all the logs were gone
So they burned the wooden spoon
and the graying water pail
the dusty windowsills
the overly ornate picture frames
and the corner table on which they sat
Next came baskets, once filled with mushrooms
her homestead clogs
his lacquered cane
As the pencils went in
so did their books
and her grandfather’s letters
that spoke of drought and famine and deep ruin
Bedframes, chairs, the birchbark ladder
the doors and the floors
the handles of axes, shovels and hoes
the ivied fence and the crooked gate
Til all that was left were two naked people
huddled hungry at the mouth of the stove
now quiet and cold in a tall ring of ashes
They kissed once
and stepped in
Daiva Chesonis served as the San Miguel County Poet Laureate in southwestern Colorado from 2019 to 2022. She founded the Telluride Literary Arts Festival and lives off-grid outside Norwood, Colorado with her husband Craig Childs. Her first book is set to publish sometime this century.
PoetrySnaps! airs the first and third Friday of each month.
About the host:
Steven Law is the co-producer of KNAU’s series PoetrySnaps! He is a poet, essayist, storyteller, and the author of Polished, a collection of poems about exploring the Colorado Plateau by foot and by raft.
About the music:
Original music by Flagstaff-based band Pilcrowe.
