Something Bright by Ryler Dustin
Green Linden Press
Green Linden Chapbook Series, softcover, $10.00
If you are stuck inside, poet Ryler Dustin provides the scent, sight, and feel of a walk in the woods—a walk in search of a way to understand family, the world, God. He talks about that search in his poem “Confession in a Wheat Field Approaching My Hometown,” where he writes, “My family found you / in a TV preacher’s promise. / My friends and I pretended / we were our own movies / while the patience of scientists, / men and women of unflinching faith, / conspired to tell the truth— / which was different than what felt true.” Possibly, his haunting considerations were only uncovered by spending time alone in the woods. Dustin lived off-grid in Oregon “with a dog he met while hiking.”
As an inhabitant of the Pacific Northwest, I can confidently say that he nailed the tone and imagery of the woods. He frequently takes his readers to the “bracken, birch, Douglas fir,” and he does not leave out the nettles in his “Trailer Park Psalm.” This poem brings up images of Stand by Me, with its descriptions of innocent boys romping through the forest. But nettles are out there, and they look harmless but are not. And Dustin’s poem has whimsical elements, but he does not shy from reporting the sting as in this line, “Bless Dick, eyes emptied by a war / we were too young to know…”
The collection is not all trees; he also writes about voyages to London. What is clear is that Dustin is an excellent listener, as we read in his observations about chatty women who “left the mall / with bags brushing their thighs, / a sound like breath.” He also writes for those whose memories are aroused by scent; he has not left out the mildew or the mold.
Some of his lines are like Zen koans—lines you could contemplate for a lifetime and only understand half of it. For me, one of these is: “her wrists so defenseless that the world, for the first time, frightens / you …” As someone with tiny wrists, I have known this fact too well, but hearing another bear witness to it uncovers a whole new layer. Through his poems littered with particulars about the Pacific Northwest, I also learned a cure for the sting of nettles that I could have used the first time I tended to my Whidbey Island garden. Good lord, that was uncomfortable. Also, I learned to never toss out ash in the bin.
For a new visitor to the PNW, skip the tour guide books and pick up a copy of Something Bright—it will tell you where to look to see the heart of this landscape. This might be what Dustin points to in his poem, “Whatcom Creek Memorial Trail.”
