Essays, Art and Plays by Dan

I was kinda thrilled that my essay was selected as the “winner” for this week’s challenge and below is the poem for the week and my essay about the poem.

The poem:
dusk the call goes directly to voicemail
— Cherie Hunter Day,The Heron's (June, 2018)

My essay:
What catches me first in “dusk the call goes directly to voicemail” is dusk. At this stage in life, I can’t read that word quite the way I did at twenty-five. Back then dusk meant the day was finally cooling off, dinner was coming, perhaps music, friends, somewhere to go. There was always tomorrow. Now dusk carries a second meaning I don’t have to manufacture. I am in the dusk of my own life. That sounds gloomier than I intend. I don’t regard dusk as a tragedy. I still want to learn things, write things, travel, listen to music,

Which makes the rest of the poem, the call goes directly to voicemail, less trivial than it might appear.

I remember rotary phones. I remember calling someone and letting the telephone ring six or seven times before finally hanging up. There was no voicemail, no “Do Not Disturb,” no electronic clues to interpret. Nobody answered. You tried again later.

Now “directly to voicemail” starts the mind working. Is the phone off? Is the person busy? Did they see my name and decide not to answer? Is something wrong?

Perhaps this is what I like most about the poem. In seven words it puts two kinds of time beside each other: dusk, which human beings have watched for thousands of years, and voicemail, which will probably become technologically obsolete before dusk even notices.

And maybe I am reading too much into seven words. At my age, however, you learn that an unanswered call can be utterly insignificant.

But you also learn that sometimes there will be no next conversation.

In my case, when my calls to someone go directly to voicemail, I wait a minute, I look out at the fading light.

Then I call again.