One of my favorite poems by the St. Lucian poet Kendell Hippolyte is called Brother Bone. Even now I don't think I fully comprehend what the poem is. I am more attracted by the quiet and depth, simplicity and tenderness which the poem evinces so naturally and effortlessly, than anyting else.
Brother Bone
Not just brothers, we were close.
Death, first son of my mother
And I, we made one.
As eldest brothers will, he’d constantly advise,
prod, goad me toward my good.
He was brusque, even mocking, but without guile.
Most people found him hard: in fact,
my close friends called him Bone
(secretly) and told me he was too exact,
severe in his perspective, he was cruel.
Perhaps he was, i never noticed.
i followed, hero-worshipped him because
he was calm, wise, deep in the ways
of everything which lived – each leaf, bird, beast
or man. He taught me how to see.
There was a clarity, each thing was haloed
when Death, my brother Bone
pointed it out to me.
i never was alone.
i loved him, for his cold light that showed
the truth in things.
i miss him now.
What is this strange, eccentric little poem about? The language is so easy to understand; the personification of death as an older brother makes the idea of the poem so accessible and tangible. However what is the idea of the poem? I believe the poet here is deftly mixing his personal experience or tragedy of death with his own poetic philosophy. The poet seems to see death as another side of life; the side giving weight and depth to aspects of ordinary life which are too easily ignored or taken for granted:
There was a clarity, each thing was haloed
when Death, my brother Bone
pointed it out to me.
But just as people could be too blind to the richness and depth of life which death is able to illuminate, they could equally or easily be too obsessed with the spectacle of death, ignoring its painful or tragic aspects. The poet seems to ignore in the first stanza his friends warning him about death being 'too cruel'. We can see a reflection of this romanticization of death in many classical poets, the Romantics in particular. In Keat's famous poem 'Ode to a Nightingale', the sweet song of the nightingale personifies all that is beautiful, all that is rich about death:
Darkling I listen; and, for many a time
I have been half in love with easeful Death,
Call'd him soft names in many a musèd rhyme,
To take into the air my quiet breath;
Now more than ever seems it rich to die,
To cease upon the midnight with no pain,
While thou art pouring forth thy soul abroad
In such an ecstasy!
Percy Byshe Shelley in his ode 'To Night' seems to echo the same sentiment.
Swiftly walk over the western wave,
Spirit of Night!
Out of the misty eastern cave
Where, all the long and lone daylight,
Thou wovest dreams of joy and fear,
Which make thee terrible and dear, -
Swift be thy flight!
Wrap thy form in a mantle grey,
Star-inwrought!
Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day,
Kiss her until she be wearied out,
Then wander o'er city, and sea, and land,
Touching all with thine opiate wand -
Come, long-sought!
When I arose and saw the dawn,
I sighed for thee;
When light rode high, and the dew was gone,
And noon lay heavy on flower and tree,
And the weary Day turned to his rest,
Lingering like an unloved guest,
I sighed for thee.
Thy brother Death came, and cried
`Wouldst thou me?'
Thy sweet child Sleep, the filmy-eyed,
Murmured like a noontide bee
`Shall I nestle near thy side?
Wouldst thou me?' -And I replied
`No, not thee!'
Death will come when thou art dead,
Soon, too soon -
Sleep will come when thou art fled;
Of neither would I ask the boon
I ask of thee, beloved Night -
Swift be thine approaching flight,
Come soon, soon!
Never mind the distinctions that Shelley makes between Death and Night. If anything the last stanza only shows that it is the finality of death which he dreads and wishes to avoid. Night and Sleep simply gives him a chance to die over and over again! So Brother Bone could be seen as modern continuation of this poetic obsession or attraction for death. However, one of the big differences between Keat's and Shelley's personification of death and Kendel Hippolyte's is that the former are defined by a sense of the erotic. Even when they refer to death as a he, they don't seem to shy away from the idea of the homo-erotic. Keats boasts about 'called him soft names in many a mused rhyme' and in the case of Shelley we see him one moment egging Night on to 'Blind with thine hair the eyes of Day/Kiss her until she be wearied out' and the next moment asking of the Night to do him the same, apparently. But with Kendel what we have is a Brotherly non erotic love being expressed for death. Kendell Hippolyte could be seen in this regard as less a Romantic than a Wise man trying to learn all he can can from his elder, Death. We can think of the poet referring to death as an elder brother in the same way that a young or beginning Islamic scolar sees an elder Imam as an older brother. And in a matter of fact much of the poetry of Kendel Hippolyte has been defined by this sense of the mystic wiseman set apart and aloof from a society which has sold its soul to Mammon, a mystic wiseman whose job it is to cry out against this evil like a prophet/ madman in the wilderness. In a poem ' I Will Lift Up Mine Eyes' , the title taken from a biblical verse echoes it spiritual associations as it describes quite effectively the hierarcy of a rat race which ends with the Prophet/ mad man at the bottom of it all:
the shocking mad man on the dung heap
who laughs and understands the whole thing.
In the case of Shelley's poem there seems to be no alloying of the passion which the poet seems to possess for death; and Shelley gets away with it as he is confessing a passion not for death proper, but rather its brother Night, a more benign version of death; In keats however we see something much more complex. Even as he longs for death, he realises that if dead he would not be able to partake of this exquiste delight of song: Still wouldst thou sing, and I have ears in vain - / To thy high requiem become a sod. In the case of Kendell this misgiving about hero-worshipping death in such an uncritical way takes a dfferent form. Although the poet does not say it outright, it seems the actual death of someone he loves has a profound effect on him. In the line 'I miss him now' of the last stanza, him could be reference to an actual deceased loved one, as oppossed to the theory of death, never experienced yet admired by the writer as a philosophy of life or living or society.
