In June the Labyrinth

Cynthia Hogue

• Publisher: Red Hen Press
• Year: 2017
• eBook ISBN: 9781597095785
• Topic: Literature
• Subtopic: Poetry
• Index: Literature

In her stunning ninth collection of poetry, In June the Labyrinth, Cynthia Hogue tells a deeply personal lyric of love and loss through a mythic story. This book-length serial poem follows Elle, a dying woman, as she travels a trans-historical, trans-geographical terrain on a quest to investigate the labyrinth not only as myth and symbol, but something akin to the "labyrinth of the broken heart." At the heart of Elle's individual story is the earnest female pilgrim's journey, full of disappointment but also hard-won wisdom and courage—inspired by Hogue's own composited experience with loss, in particular the death of her mother. Rooted in the idea of the labyrinth as a symbol for life, as in the great Gothic cathedrals of Europe that Hogue would visit the summer of her mother's death, these poems above all distill, fracture, recompose, and tell only partially—literally in parts but also in loving detail—the story of a life.

III

(“peace, love”)

Elle, belle, sought a Love

which still “rules the sky”

“of your heart” (yes you!).

Found the road long

and time short

as a holy strong one.

Found the “labyrinth of tangled arguments”

fear-filled demons used to counter

Love’s “sweet peace.”

(“alone in love”)

I was trying to recall that

those who enter the labyrinth

can leave.

Calculations from the measurements show

this is not so.

There’s no way around this problem.

I must seek a solution to the geometry

that my future has unverged with yours.

I am not dead but silenced.

(“like to a sphere”)

Love of sea and land

sufficed. You:

the demon she forgave in the end.

Thought of your betrayal

even to the point of madness.

Worried it through like a rope.

“likewise God”

“and of happiness”

“didst teach that”

“paradise might be called”

“a labyrinth rather”

“than a garden”

“In body like to a sphere on all sides perfectly rounded”

(“thinking of you”)

When you aren’t here

and I call you to mind,

can you hear me?

I conjure a character flush

with flesh, your name as

sign of your life apart,

but have no sense

of whom I address.

Let me ask you: who who who?

Looking for you,

I wander through a dark wood,

a grove, a crowd

of trees, so many I at last

give you world’s enough,

time never to be found:

Can you then see

that giving another something—

let’s say you these hours among trees

with the space they need

to make the poison choking us

into a potion healing all—

is an example of the gift with no

strings, though you may think

there will always be strings?

(“verge”)

Elle says: “Understand when I see in”

“the future I mention the future”

“in order to propose constructing”

“a labyrinth I call Crystal,”

“along a park signifying eternity, or”

“the timeless stream.”

“What I mean to say is paradise,”

“but let’s speak for the moment”

“of a garden the edges of which”

“are geometric or even”

“labyrinthine. Grass verges”

“punctuate the straight lines and”

“loops of”

“this deliberately unverdured space,”

“as in”: My future has unverged with yours.

You have no foresight only facts,

and no vision only verdure.

“For the moment Elle’s by a high wall”

“that looks out over the labyrinth.”

(“the crux”)

Elle calls and demon answers.

She thinks she knows his name.

This is the crux of her belief:

No one here to fall

back on but herself, she the wild,

and true blue, the only starry night.

She wakes to his face and scent.

If he touched her would she fly?

Turn fearsome angel batting wings

about his ears, flitting in his thoughts

as if to stay? She calls once more:

Go home.

There is no further object or objection.

No sin or sinisterness. She’ll walk...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Acknowledgments
• Dedication
• Contents
• I
• II
• III
• IV
• Notes
• Biographical Note