“Commencement Speech, Delivered at the Buncombe County Institute for Elevator Inspectors,” by Matthew Olzmann

Poetry faculty member Matthew Olzmann was recently featured in the New England Review. Read an excerpt of Olzmann’s poem below:

Commencement Speech, Delivered at the Buncombe County Institute for Elevator Inspectors

I’ve been thinking about things lifted 
into the sky. Szymborska gets lung cancer 
and is whisked into the clouds. Muhammad Ali 
floats the way he always said he would, but this time, 
doesn’t return to the ground. Stephen Hawking 
shuts his eyes and merges with one 
of the black holes he so adored while on Earth.

Each year, this is more frequent. 
David Bowie. Toni Morrison. Stan Lee. 
Onto the platform. The doors close. Up they go. 
Meteor showers. Sun halos. Occultations. 
There’ve been others, less publicized, 
less luminous figures, but absences I feel
nonetheless. I’ve been told they’re up there as well. 

My uncle. My mother-in-law. Blair. 
Jason. Stephanie. Chris. Dark matter. 
Moon dust. A haze across the firmament. 
The work behind the scenes to get them 
from here to there is invisible and precise:

You must examine the endless chain, 
the lifting drum, the tension pulley, 
the counterweight. Double and triple check 
the sling, the governor, the buffer, the sheave.

Ascension is harrowing. Grief is heavy.
The hoist cable must never waver. 
It must bear the unbearable. 

Read the rest of this poem here: https://www.nereview.com/vol-42-no-2-2021/commencement-speech-delivered-at-the-buncombe-county-institute-for-elevator-inspectors/