Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

"Bells in the Endtime of Gyurmey Tsultrim" by Norman Dubie is a deeply evocative and complex poem that layers imagery of natural forces, human experiences, and metaphysical reflections. This poem intricately weaves together scenes that span across different times and spaces, creating a mosaic of human existence confronted with its own fragility and the omnipresent shadow of death.

The poem begins with a striking, almost macabre image of a bowl made from a "tobacco-yellow skull" filled with the blood of a yearling ox and quince seeds. This visceral scene sets a tone of primal, almost ritualistic intensity, suggesting a connection to both life and death, growth and decay. This connection is immediately juxtaposed with the modern image of an airliner flying low over marshes populated by ducks, linking the ancient and the contemporary, the ground and the sky.

Dubie then introduces a scene filled with natural and supernatural turmoil: lightning striking from granite and forsythia, rising missiles of nettle, and a night bureau animated around a dead poet's accordion. The "emphysema of sound" from the stars further intensifies this chaotic interplay between the cosmos and earthly matters, suggesting an unraveling or an upheaval that transcends human understanding.

The poem transitions into scenes of destruction juxtaposed with everyday life—the rhododendron sprays across caskets of French merchants and their families, including a stewardess from Marseilles—a tragic, yet almost mundane enumeration of death. This is followed by the poignant image of the stewardess, an individual caught in the tragedy, highlighting the personal within the collective catastrophe.

The narrative continues to unfold with surreal and cinematic quality as Dubie introduces Charlie Chaplin, a figure who evokes both the tragic and the comic aspects of humanity. Chaplin, wandering under a canopy of oaks with a burnt suitcase, examines children's paintings—a scene that juxtaposes innocence and disaster, as the paintings depict idyllic and chaotic scenes.

As the poem culminates, Dubie connects these disparate images with the motif of a goitered gnome in Rome, a figure described as an anti-Christ. This character's declaration, "I am the lightning strike / That starts with sky, lake of fire," serves as a metaphysical climax, symbolizing perhaps the destructive yet purifying forces of nature and human influence.

The final stanzas evoke the aftermath of a plane crash, metaphorically tying together the themes of the poem—the fragility of life, the inevitability of death, and the human compulsion to find meaning amid chaos. The "great folding lung of the accordions" sending messages from a phosphorus afterlife suggests communication beyond death, an echo of life’s persistent influence even in destruction.

Overall, "Bells in the Endtime of Gyurmey Tsultrim" is a masterful exploration of the human condition through the lens of vast, often incomprehensible forces. Dubie uses dense, layered imagery and shifting perspectives to challenge the reader to contemplate the interconnectedness of life, death, and the eternal cycle of renewal and decay. The poem is both a lament and a reflection on the profound and often mysterious nature of existence.

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