The Hole in the Sky

A poem by Will Pemberton

Editor’s note: A few weeks before Will (one of the three founders of this site) passed away last August, he sent me a document with a handful of his poems, to publish on Utopian Idiots. At the time, however, all my thoughts were with him, not with this project, and I didn’t get a chance to publish the poems before he passed away. With Jonathon and I now making a renewed effort to resurrect Utopian Idiots, it seemed a good time to publish Will’s poems. Here is the first of them.

There’s a hole in the sky,   
    a place whence dreams
Come down to be born.
Then go back to die   
    when ripped at the seams,
too thin and outworn.

I once caught the sight, 
    —For real? I can’t say—
But something came near:
A picture of light   
    On a summertime day,
in a summertime year.

I’d walked through a swamp,    
    a place I don’t know,
the flies at my ear.
—A first youthful romp—    
    Not sure where to go, 
nor whether to fear.

I entered the wood.     
    The maple limbs long;
the cherry limbs dead.
The fragrance was good.    
    I burst out in song
and chewed my rough bread.

A circle of light    
    invaded the trees
o’erwhelming my eyes.
The wood shrank from sight     
    like fog in the breeze.
I looked up the rise.

The great sky aloft    
    was bluer than blue
with green grass below.
And, softer than soft,     
    It dazzled with dew
In the mid-morning glow.

A field without end    
    awave in the wind.
I marveled a space.
No daring would send    
    Me in, lest I sinned
and tarnished the place.

And then, without thought,   
    I wandered away
Back in to the shade,
Forgetting the spot,    
    Nor marking the way
my wandering made.

I never could find    
    that vision again,
Though many times trying.
Did I become blind?    
    If so, then how? When?
Was memory lying?

It’s now been worn thin   
    with asking how true,
or if my dreams lie.
And so it folds in    
    and vanishes through
the hole in the sky.