Poem of the Week: “Those Days” by Gerard Fanning

“Those Days,” a poem from Gerard Fanning’s final, unpublished collection, Slip Road, contemplates a fading vision, “I used to stand on my porch / and see as far as three days’ walk / but those days are long out of reach.” Vision, in the poem, is conditioned by the inevitable passage of time; and soon near-sightedness “is what constitutes the matter now.” Fanning writes a stunning nostalgia and melancholia into “Those Days,” and yet there is still time for “dreaming in the far away / chasing what remains in light.”

— Madeline Chanfrau, WFU Press intern

Those Days 

I used to stand on my porch
and see as far as three days’ walk,
but those days are long out of reach.

Near-sighted now, a concave earth
seen through crushed sand
has a bevel line to show its worth.

It used to be that I could see far away
and that partly still holds true,
but shortened sight, reined in everyday

is what constitutes the matter now.
Soon everything will be at arm’s length —
luger, shot, remote, fretted brow —

enough to make me want to stay,
more than enough to be going on,
but dreaming in the far away

chasing what remains in light,
passing over lost sunken fleets
I will be sent for, soon, at night.

— Gerard Fanning, from Collected Poems (2024)