This is Poetry Moment on WPSU – a weekly program featuring the work of contemporary Pennsylvania poets. Your host is poet and author Marjorie Maddox, a 2023 Monson Arts Fellow, author of more than 20 books, and Professor Emerita of English and Creative Writing at the Lock Haven campus of Commonwealth University.
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Welcome to Poetry Moment.
“It seemed/like half my life I stood in darkness,” says poet and veteran David Staudt in today’s poem “Light.” As “officer of the deck in charge of the bridge and ship’s movements,” Staudt stood watch for thousands of hours. Earlier this year, the poet contrasted military and civilian life: “[f]or some months after leaving the Navy, the lights of traffic . . . seemed harsh and ugly, almost overwhelming, as were many aspects of civilian life.”
David Staudt grew up in Lehighton, Carbon County, and served in the Navy aboard an attack submarine and on a guided missile frigate in the Pacific. His book of poems is The Gifts and Thefts (Backwaters Press). He practiced law for 25 years from offices in York, Harrisburg, and Philadelphia.
Poetry allows us to step inside experiences we have not held and revisit ones we have. In his poem “Light,” former naval officer David Staudt takes us within complete darkness as he prepares for his watch. Inch by inch, we follow as he makes his way on deck and—years later—as he returns to civilian life.
Here’s “Light” by David Staudt
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Standing orders said an hour,
at least, before taking the deck,
an officer must have his night vision.
But sick for sleep or motion sick
we'd trim that to fifteen minutes,
reeling blind by the chart table, top
of the ladder, hugging a stanchion.
The bridge rigged for dark by the boatswain,
radar faces hooded, the consoles turned down
just beneath invisible, then just up,
it seemed that the ship slid pilotless,
though often I felt a watch stander pass,
yielding like denser dark within dark.
It was best not to fight the blindness,
but wait to come to: the pupils, relaxing,
easing to sight, vision like alcohol's
first cool flush, sleep's first tug in bed.
Only by staring at the purest dark
would the pockets resolve into staggered
shapes of teenagers slumped on station:
apprentice quartermaster sneaking a butt,
helmsman, cap bill over eyes,
drifting wildly east of course.
How sensitive our eyes became to those
broken filaments of photons beamed
across the false flat of ocean--running-lights,
mast and stern, like stations phasing
in static on a radio dial. It seemed
like half my life I stood in darkness,
making right decisions based on glints,
pips, marks connected by grease pen,
the infinitesimal signs of masses
drifting hugely toward collision.
Years later, civilian, driving south
toward Rome from the Adirondacks,
where is that good night in which I could see?
Where will I find so pure a darkness?
Signboards catapult toward the car,
and every headlight blinds me.
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Originally published in River Oak Review
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That was “Light” by David Staudt. Thanks for listening.
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Listen for Poetry Moment with Marjorie Maddox Mondays during Morning Edition and All Things Considered on WPSU. You can more episodes at wpsu.org/poetrymoment.
Our theme music is by Eric Ian Farmer.
