First Light, Last Light by Glen
Sorestad
by Stephen Morrissey
First Light, Last Light
Glen Sorestad, 2025
Shadowpaw Press
Regina, Saskatchewan,
ISBN 978-1-998273-46-1
In
his eighty-eighth year Glen Sorestad
continues to write new poems and has just published a new book of poetry, First
Light, Last Light. The first section of the book, "The Human
Touch", is comprised of poems in which Sorestad remembers people who were
important to him; the second section, "Sunbeams and Shadows", is less
defined by the past, it has an awareness of the natural world, mostly referring
to birds. The whole book emphasizes the importance of the past as well as the
importance of the natural world. It is a book of endings, fall to winter, day
to night, and the people we've known and loved and who are now deceased; it is
a book of the transience of life.
The first section of First Light, Last Light has many references to Sorestad's father,
someone Sorestad often remembers; Sorestad recalls that his father drove a
"1935 Ford", and that his father had a beautiful singing voice, a
talent that Sorestad also shares; "My father had a great singing voice./ I
have no memories of this of my own" but an elderly aunt has
"conveyed/ this genealogical tidbit to me", and this reminds Sorestad
that his memories of his father are of an older man, one "who grew/
increasingly taciturn and introspective/ as he neared the end of a life cut
short...".
It is in the details that the past comes to
life; in "The Whistler", Sorestad remembers that his father
"loved to whistle." In "Honouring Our Fathers", Sorestad writes
that he and his wife, Sonia, compared "notes about/ our long-departed
fathers" and reflect on the similarities between the two men. Both of these
fathers are remembered as men who valued their families, they were hard
workers, they were good men. In another poem Sorestad writes, "I have
always been aware of this:/ the missing are always missed." As time passes
we may not miss these people as often as we once did, but missing someone, or feeling
grief at losing them, does not end, it stays with us as long as we live. The
word "missing" is poignant; "missing" suggests the hopeful possibility
they might one day be found; of course, where they truly are is in our hearts. Sorestad
writes,
Why
do I keep writing these memories,
real
or imagined, of my father, now gone
over
six decades from my life?
. .
. . .
Is
there anyone left alive with reason
to
doubt whether my own recollections
bear
even slight resemblance to the man?
"Gene Gifts",
p. 27
In "Bulldozers" Sorestad reflects on the
illusion of progress, "We inter our own history/ under the sham mound of
progress". What is left of the past is ploughed under—"Every fallen
log, every hillock—/ abandoned beaver dam,/ or forgotten Indigenous grave—/
levelled". Sorestad's feelings about the bulldozing of old homes, fields,
nature despoiled, is also the destruction of our collective and individual
memories, and poets are memory carriers, they remember the past and they keep
the past alive in the stories, anecdotes, and details of what the past was like.
It is the second section of First Light, Last Light that really surprised
me; these poems have a different quality to them than in the previous section;
it is now the natural world that impresses itself on the poet. This section is
mostly comprised of poems that refer to birds and there are also a few foxes that
have been seen in the part of Saskatoon where Sorestad lives. There is a
transformation manifested in nature; this is expressed in the emphasis on birds
and the symbolism of birds. In Jean Chevalier and Alain Gheerbrant's A Dictionary of Symbols (1969) we read
that birds are "symbols of the links between Heaven and Earth . . . Birds,
symbols of the soul, play the role of Intermediaries between Heaven and
Earth."
As symbols birds are messengers of the divine;
birds are symbolic of freedom, spirituality, and a connection between the earth
and the heavens. Sorestad's poem, "Red winged Blackbirds" stood out
for me (and not only because it mentions my birthday in the first
line—"the twenty-seventh of April") and describes walking in nature
and seeing a red-winged blackbird, a bird I no longer see here in the east;
Sorestad writes,
There
is no avoiding the brazen birds,
should
you be so inclined. They are political
poets
of the bird world and like Milton Acorn
they
shout love, whether you understand,
or
appreciate, or agree with it or not.
Here are some of the birds referred to by Sorestad
in this book:
Snowy
owls
Crows
Waxwings
Blackbirds
Cooper's
Hawks
Canada
Geese
Catbirds
Robins
Chickadees
Swans
Juncos
Snow
geese
Turkey
vultures
Magpies
Catbirds
Bohemian
Waxwing
Blue
Jay
We are visited daily by these messengers of the
divine. Take, for instance, "Crow Meditation"; upon seeing the first
crow of the year Sorestad writes,
Is
it confirmation of an expectation?
Or
the assurance, here and now. Nature
has
proclaimed again that all is well?
The crow is a bird that has a long memory, be
careful not to offend a crow or the consequences will be long lasting, you might
be subject to the crow aggressively flying at you, not for days or weeks, but for
years to come; and they will recognize your face and distinguish between you
and other people. Crows have the intelligence of a seven year old child and can
be a delight to watch. One's relationship with crows is one in which we can learn
something about ourselves; they can be predatory (I have watched a crow land in
a neighbour's tree with a small dead squirrel in its claws), but there is much
more to crows than this.
Sorestad writes that it is "Hard to Love a
Crow", especially when the crow hunts younger birds; looking out at their
new bird bath he writes, "I expect we both shared the same vision://
robins and sparrows, warbler and finches,/ chickadees and other songsters would
arrive/ at our burbling flow to drink and to splash." But crows are clever
and intelligent animals, crows are carnivores and cagey in their approach to
finding the next meal. In "Corvid Hygiene" he writes,
Crow
turns to the window,
cocks its head at me
and those dark eyes
seize
mine for a moment.
I'm positive Crow
would like to say
something
to me, something
I'm not at all sure
I want to hear.
Personally, I have observed crows and other
birds for years and I always enjoy seeing crows soak food found at a nearby
Chinese restaurant in our backyard bird bath. Crows are also known for leaving
presents after their visits. One day, after visits by crows, I was pouring
fresh water into the bird bath when I found an old Canadian penny beside the
bird bath; I thought that was nice and then I looked at the penny more closely,
it was almost completely rubbed smooth and the date on it was 1957, the year
after my father died. It is probably of no great significance, but personally,
I like to think that it is a meaningful coincidence—a synchronistic experience—and
that it tells me we live in a meaningful universe. I feel that the crows had
delivered to me a special gift—a personal gift from them—and it is a penny that
I still possess.
There is also Sorestad's "Nordic spirit"
present in his poems; by this I refer to ancestral qualities of self-reliance, an
adherence to truth, love for the natural world, the importance of inner
strength, and an unstated assumption of accepting things as they are. Glen
Sorestad's heritage is Norwegian and he reminds me of the late Canadian poet George Johnston whose own poetry, including his translations of the Icelandic Sagas
and poetry from the Faroe Islands, also had these Nordic qualities. Both poets
discover in the everyday, the quotidian, a way to express what is important in
life. Glen Sorestad's poems also remind me of the poems of the American poet
William Stafford; Sorestad and Stafford have a similar sensibility; they are
western poets and, one feels, they are closer to the essentials of poetry than
is found in some poets of the big eastern cities.
For Glen Sorestad the first light is diminishing and the last light is on the horizon, but it is not a time of sadness; it is a time of love. This is not a sad or unhappy book, every poem affirms life and being alive; the past lives in our hearts but it also lives in memory. This is a book of memories and reflections on the past, they weave in and out of consciousness; it is also a book of the natural world, of a connection with nature. These are fall and winter poems, a time of reflection, a time of solitude. Do we agree with Beowulf, that "grief follows joy", or is it Chaucer that we resonate to when he writes in The Canterbury Tales, "But after wo I rede us to be merye"? I think Sorestad would choose the latter; however, a paradox of life is that you can be on both sides of an issue at the same time; but, overall, Glen Sorestad is on the side of life and creativity and continuing on life's journey no matter if it is the first light or the last light of day.
Stephen
Morrissey
25 November 2025
