A Poet's Passing

Here's a glass raised to the inimitable Mike Chrisman

Since news of his passing began circulating through the community two days ago, I’ve been thinking about my brother Mike Chrisman. I want to craft a eulogy for his memory, something that would conjure the mild-mannered magic he brought to all our lives, but the wiser part of me knows he needs no such special effort. Mike did that work himself while he lived, and he left it behind in a record for all of us to read.

Mike was my brother, my counselor, my editor, my colleague, my drinking buddy, and my friend, but above all of that, he was a magnificent poet with a remarkable ability to “keyhole” his readers into the great realms of truth, beauty, and light in the most natural of ways. The only writer I’ve read who does it as well is former US poet laureate Billy Collins, and for those who don’t travel in poetry circles, that’s the highest praise.

Like Collins, Mike often began his poems with the tiniest of observations. He’d focus on a bottlecap on the floor, a ladybug on a leaf, or something he’d read in a science journal. Then he’d turn that small truth into a lens, a keyhole through which he gently guided readers until they found themselves standing inside a cathedral, marveling at the mastery of the whole. As his reader, I experienced that sublime beauty countless times. As a fellow writer, I was in awe of the grace with which he worked.

See for yourself what I mean:

Puerto Escondido, México

by Mike Chrisman 2024

I’m sitting halfway out

the balcony door, legs extended

to receive the blessing of seaside

rain, while my notebook rests

in my lap, dry as yesterday’s

tortillas. You’ve seen photos like this:

palm trees, roof tiles, palapas,

green, red, pink walls, and rain

drawing a gray curtain across

its lover’s face, the sea.

Thanks to a phone app, I know

the tree just to the right

is a sea almond. I sat under it,

back before it rained.

And just

now I wonder what a reader

will think next century: “phone app?”

the way a kid today might go,

“Haberdasher?” “Victrola?”

We’re so much in our time

we don’t notice it passes.

Not that long ago, messages

raced via Morse code, the world’s

first binary thrill: dot, dash.

My grandma used to tell

how as a teenager she hitched

the horse to a buckboard to attend

a party a few miles down the red

clay road; they all stood around a piano

to sing popular songs. 1903.

And she lived to see the moon landings.

A kid today says, “Buckboard?”

We all know time marches on.

Lucky for us it sometimes

also strolls and dawdles

and occasionally twirls on one foot

to show off its red sequined

gown, hat at that rakish angle,

while it raises a crystal cup

toward us with a wry smile

and a whisper it’s too far to hear,

but might have been, “Salud.”

----

If you can turn a rainy day at the beach into a treatise on time and our existential good fortune of living within its ever-shrinking walls in fewer than 250 words, then you’re a master of your craft - plain, simple, and true. It’s a testament to his talent that I wonder which I’ll miss more in the years ahead: his voice in my ear at the bar when we’re jawboning between sets of live and local music, or the power and passion of his verse.

An artist friend recently shared a quote by the choreographer Martha Graham. It reads:

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time, this expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.”

I can’t say for sure that Mike was unpleased, or that he lacked satisfaction in words he crafted, but I know - like all true artists - he experienced the “blessed unrest” that spurs us toward creation, and now that he’s gone, I’m left to wonder what small and nuanced reflection caught his eye as he passed through the final veil.

Here’s a question to leave you with: How do you make your life a poem?

By living it, of course.

-----

Keep the heavens warm for us, brother. We’ll all be along soon enough.

Love and poetry to you all.