In Memoriam: The Last Poems by Glenn Hughes

The passing of Glenn “Chip” Hughes comes at a great loss to the Eric Voegelin Society and VOEGELINVIEW. Chip was a great friend of the journal and its mission, including support for the publishing of poetry. Along with a handful of other poetic contributors, Chip was instrumental in providing poems to the journal in 2022 and throughout 2023 as the poetry section got off the ground. His most recent poem, “The News,” was published May 1 of this year. These poems, which were accepted for publication before his passing, are now published together as a final tribute to an exceptional friend of the journal.

~ Paul Krause, editor-in-chief.

CALLED ALL THE WAY

Just because I wake every day
as a body
listening to rain pouring down

or blinking at strips of sunlight
patterned by old Venetian blinds
doesn’t mean

I can’t follow
the lead of the Carmelite ecstatic
or the whirling Persian poet

or the crane-observing haiku master
or even
my father as he is in my dreams—

each of us called all
the way beyond
the six directions the body wanders.

ONLY ONCE

The purple flower your daughter brings home
Is a dance in the Ural Mountains. The sudden
Full moon over your neighbor’s roof
Is your mother’s unread memoir, written but burned.
Your own hands are morning and evening stars.
And this poem is a stone falling through water.

The purple flower will perish and be nothing.
Your hands will perish and be nothing.
Moon and words will be nothing.

The next time your daughter looks at you
A flock of blue birds will rise flashing in Sudan,
The earth will keep spinning magically in space,
And everywhere sweet light will flow, and be drunk
By creatures, eyes narrowed with pleasure.

PARENTS VISITING

You hear this singsong phrase, or because
a leaf glints so, you’re a child again:

alone, loved, dreaming of just
growing into a secret completeness.

No one has fully seen you.
You offered yourself both honor and welcome.

Could they have known the way you came?
Protected your deepening solitude?

So surprise them, turning heart’s evidence:
tell them a bit of the story.

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