Kit Robinson, responding to – and extending – my reading of Merrill Gilfillan:

 

 

Ron,

 

I am glad to see your fine reading of Merrill Gilfillan’s “Bull Run in October” in The Poker 2 on your blog. My reading includes another take that, for me, seems unavoidable, to wit: that the naturalist’s catalog of fauna is also a tribute to the fallen dead, whose bones fertilize the verdant landscape, itself now “reddening” in autumn. Thus the persimmon tree, diospyros, serves as metaphoric memorial: “food for the gods,” and the litany of Union troops, “…the 1st Minnesota, / the 2nd New Hampshire …” corresponds with the enumeration of botanical details. There is absolutely nothing morbid here. Rather the poem celebrates human dignity in relation to the imminence of nature, and follows directly from Whitman’s profound tributes to Civil War veterans in the convalescent hospitals of Washington in Specimen Days.

 

Merrill’s been one of my favorite poets for a long time. Thanks for calling attention to his work.

 

Kit