Brendan Galvin
Associate Editor Caitlin Doyle: In “Summer Dawn, Summer Nightgown,” Brendan Galvin invites us to glimpse a burgeoning romance between two people who have found each other during their later years (“at our age as intricately twined as though / we are life’s final gift to each other”). Galvin moves between emotional revelation and artful restraint in a way that honors the depth of their connection without veering toward excess sentimentality. The lovers have entered territory that is both familiar and mysterious to them, as reflected in the birdsong that brings “music we know / or don’t know” into their windows.
Along with the customary clamor of robins and cardinals, they hear the “see me see me” song of a bird that one of them drolly dubs the “narcissist warbler.” They relish the chirps of an unidentified winged friend, a kind of avian comedian in the landscape of their intimate delight, who seems to be offering, over and over, “free beer.” Galvin lets us in on these private jokes shared by the lovers to show us the dynamic nature of their bond, a relationship by turns tender, playful, and wry. Just as we sense the poem lifting into the type of lyrical flight that readers of English-language poetry have long associated with depictions of a female beloved (“… you rise in your summer nightgown’s / revelations and flow to the dresser”), Galvin brings us back to the concrete, messy, everyday reality of love as experienced by two fully fledged human beings. Birdsong or not, they must decide, whether through the teasing flip of a two-euro Donegal coin or more quotidian methods of negotiating life together, “who will make the coffee.”
Summer Dawn, Summer Nightgown
I love the way light travels these mornings,
and the way you leave shades and windows open
so at four or five a.m. it assures our waking
to pines and a tidal wave of birdsong
rising from the east, music we know
or don’t know, robin and cardinal, sure,
but also that one you call the narcissist warbler,
see me see me, or the teakettle bird
and the one offering free beer,
some others just passing through,
and the sadness of mourning doves
washing over our roof as we laugh and talk,
at our age as intricately twined as though
we are life’s final gift to each other,
until you rise in your summer nightgown’s
revelations, and flow to the dresser,
and flip that two-euro coin you brought
from Donegal, to decide who will make the coffee.
Brendan Galvin is the author of eighteen collections of poems. Habitat: New and Selected Poems 1965-2005 (LSU Press) was a finalist for the National Book Award. Egg Island Almanac appeared from Southern Illinois University Press, a Crab Orchard Series Prizewinner, in fall 2017. His work appears in current issues of Shenandoah, The Gettysburg Review, and The Hudson Review among others. He lives in Truro, Massachusetts.
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