Classic and Contemporary Poetry: Explained

John Frederick Nims’ "Powers of Heaven and Earth" is a meditation on childhood memory, the ephemeral nature of wonder, and the relationship between human perception and the vast, unknowable forces that shape the universe. The poem moves between vivid recollections of the speaker’s early years—full of awe, fear, and mystery—and a broader, philosophical reflection on how such moments shape our understanding of existence. The structure of the poem is layered, each section deepening the interplay between personal memory and a larger historical and cosmic framework.

The poem begins in a rural setting, a "musty-colored clapboard in the country," emphasizing a world both ordinary and full of latent dangers. The details—the missing steps, the sagging barn, and especially the "rattler coiled" beneath the ladder—suggest a childhood marked by both exploration and peril. The anecdote of stepping on a nail takes on an almost religious resonance: "A phrase of some foreboding then: it meant / Pre-antibiotic festering that lingered / In the sole of a foot like the Savior’s in Mantegna." Here, the mundane wound acquires an almost mythic weight, linking childhood injury to the suffering of Christ as depicted in Renaissance art. The poem suggests that even the most immediate experiences of childhood—pain, fear, and even the simple act of looking down from a height—foreshadow the larger symbolic structures we later impose on them.

The second section moves into a more explicitly metaphysical mode. The child’s "calcimined nook" with its "little window" becomes a portal to the outside world, where the railroad tracks cut through the cornfields. This transition from enclosed domestic space to the limitless horizon beyond mirrors the moment of childhood discovery—the sudden recognition that the world is larger, more mysterious, and more dazzling than one had imagined. The arrival of the "circus train" is the poem’s moment of purest revelation: "So once in my life I woke to the apparitional, / To a jackpot strewn from the morning’s cornucopia." The extravagant vision of "Bernini on wheels" transforms the train into something beyond mere spectacle; it is a fleeting, almost divine glimpse into the excesses of human imagination and artistry. But the tone quickly shifts from euphoria to loss: "But the void when it rumbled by! the empty longing." The circus train, like so many childhood wonders, is both overwhelming and transient, its passing leaving a sense of incompleteness. The speaker cannot even recall whether he attended the circus itself—only the haunting impression of its departure remains. This moment parallels Giacomo Leopardi’s meditation on Rome’s former glory: the grand spectacle, like an empire, fades into silence.

In the third section, Nims juxtaposes the external spectacle of the circus train with an equally profound but more intimate revelation—his mother’s ritualistic burning of palm fronds during a thunderstorm. The description of her walking through the house, flicking "the myrrh of ash from leaf ends," aligns her with a priestess or shaman, performing a sacred rite to ward off destruction. The moment is steeped in ancestral tradition, tied both to Catholicism and older, more pagan echoes of "banshee airs of Eire." Yet it culminates not in superstition but in a vision of celestial beauty: "From between the jagged horror of two clouds / Such a flood of moonlight as I’ve not seen since." The moon, suddenly luminous and "magnetic," mirrors his mother’s eyes, creating an almost supernatural connection between earthly ritual and cosmic grandeur. Her whispered reflection—"to think what heaven must be / If the merest country moon could pulsate such / Profusion of treasure!"—recasts the moon as a symbol of something greater than itself. The child, caught between his mother’s awe and his own, feels the pull of something beyond mere earthly existence.

The final section expands the poem’s historical and philosophical scope. The speaker recognizes that the moon that entranced his mother had also fascinated Leopardi, albeit in a different way. While for Nims’ mother the moon was an emblem of divine beauty, for Leopardi, it was a symbol of unfulfilled longing. The contrast suggests two different responses to the same cosmic mystery—one hopeful, the other deeply melancholic. The reference to Homer, "through blinded vision," further universalizes the moon’s significance, stretching its presence across cultures and epochs.

The closing lines shift from human history to deep time, reminding us that even our most profound moments of revelation are mere blips in the geological and cosmic timeline. The "crust of the earth remembers" the movements of prehistoric creatures, just as the human mind recalls childhood wonders. The moon, for all its "fingering," cannot reach deep enough to touch these ancient remnants, suggesting that some aspects of existence remain permanently out of reach. The poem thus leaves us with a dual sense of continuity and insignificance—our most powerful memories, our most formative experiences, are both deeply personal and echoes of something far greater than ourselves.

"Powers of Heaven and Earth" is ultimately a meditation on how we experience and interpret wonder. The train and the moon represent two different kinds of revelation—one sudden and extravagant, the other steady and luminous. The poem suggests that our encounters with beauty and mystery are always fleeting, that childhood awe is both formative and doomed to be outgrown. Yet through art, memory, and contemplation, we continue to seek meaning in the ephemeral, drawing connections between personal history and the vast, unknowable forces that shape the universe.

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