Chameleon Hours
From Ways of Going
for Steve

Will it be like paragliding
gossamer takeoff, seedlike drifting down
into a sunlit, unexpected grove?

Or ski-jumping—headlong soaring,
ski-tips piercing clouds,
crystal revelations astonishing my goggles?

. . . . Skittery flicker of a glare-weary lizard
startled into the sheltering wings of a leaf,

rusting freighter with a brimming hold
shimmering onto a crimson edge. . . .

Sad rower pushed from shore,
I'll disappear like circles summoned
by an oar's dip.

However I burn through to the next atmosphere,
let your dear face be the last thing I see.
 

 
Whether writing poems about North American life and landscape; or love poems; or elegies for family and friends; or poems on serious, debilitating illness and the transformations it can effect—Elise Partridge offers in Chameleon Hours words forged by suffering and courage. Full of wit and empathy, Partridge’s poems draw inspiration from sources as whimsical as tortoises and pontoons, as poignant as a homeless woman taking shelter inside a post office on a winter night, and as deeply personal as her own cancer diagnosis at a young age. Chameleon Hours is a book about the rewards of being reminded of one’s own mortality and the lyric expression of life in all its intensity.
 

Elise Partridge is a teacher and editor.  She is the author of Fielder’s Choice.
 
 
 
 
"1100556872"
Chameleon Hours
From Ways of Going
for Steve

Will it be like paragliding
gossamer takeoff, seedlike drifting down
into a sunlit, unexpected grove?

Or ski-jumping—headlong soaring,
ski-tips piercing clouds,
crystal revelations astonishing my goggles?

. . . . Skittery flicker of a glare-weary lizard
startled into the sheltering wings of a leaf,

rusting freighter with a brimming hold
shimmering onto a crimson edge. . . .

Sad rower pushed from shore,
I'll disappear like circles summoned
by an oar's dip.

However I burn through to the next atmosphere,
let your dear face be the last thing I see.
 

 
Whether writing poems about North American life and landscape; or love poems; or elegies for family and friends; or poems on serious, debilitating illness and the transformations it can effect—Elise Partridge offers in Chameleon Hours words forged by suffering and courage. Full of wit and empathy, Partridge’s poems draw inspiration from sources as whimsical as tortoises and pontoons, as poignant as a homeless woman taking shelter inside a post office on a winter night, and as deeply personal as her own cancer diagnosis at a young age. Chameleon Hours is a book about the rewards of being reminded of one’s own mortality and the lyric expression of life in all its intensity.
 

Elise Partridge is a teacher and editor.  She is the author of Fielder’s Choice.
 
 
 
 
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Chameleon Hours

Chameleon Hours

by Elise Partridge
Chameleon Hours

Chameleon Hours

by Elise Partridge

Paperback

$18.00 
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Overview

From Ways of Going
for Steve

Will it be like paragliding
gossamer takeoff, seedlike drifting down
into a sunlit, unexpected grove?

Or ski-jumping—headlong soaring,
ski-tips piercing clouds,
crystal revelations astonishing my goggles?

. . . . Skittery flicker of a glare-weary lizard
startled into the sheltering wings of a leaf,

rusting freighter with a brimming hold
shimmering onto a crimson edge. . . .

Sad rower pushed from shore,
I'll disappear like circles summoned
by an oar's dip.

However I burn through to the next atmosphere,
let your dear face be the last thing I see.
 

 
Whether writing poems about North American life and landscape; or love poems; or elegies for family and friends; or poems on serious, debilitating illness and the transformations it can effect—Elise Partridge offers in Chameleon Hours words forged by suffering and courage. Full of wit and empathy, Partridge’s poems draw inspiration from sources as whimsical as tortoises and pontoons, as poignant as a homeless woman taking shelter inside a post office on a winter night, and as deeply personal as her own cancer diagnosis at a young age. Chameleon Hours is a book about the rewards of being reminded of one’s own mortality and the lyric expression of life in all its intensity.
 

Elise Partridge is a teacher and editor.  She is the author of Fielder’s Choice.
 
 
 
 

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780226647920
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Publication date: 03/01/2008
Series: Phoenix Poets
Pages: 112
Product dimensions: 6.12(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Elise Partridge (1958-2015) was a teacher and editor. She is the author of three books, including Fielder’s Choice and Chameleon House.
 
 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

ONE

     Everglades
     Two Scenes from Philadelphia
     1959
     Group Portrait
     The Artist's House
     In the Barn
     Thirteen
     Two Monuments
     First Death
     Miss Peters
     Mia's House
     Supermarket Scanner
     Temp
     For a Father
     Elegy
     The Secret House
     Caught
     One Calvinist's God
     Plague

TWO

     Gnomic Verses from the Anglo-Saxon
     Four Lectures by Robert Lowell
     Sisyphus: The Sequel
     Philosophical Arguments
     Depends on the Angle
     Insights
     As I Was Saying
     Arcadia
     Rural Route
     Dislocations
     Song: The Messenger
     The Book of Steve
     August
     Buying the Farm

THREE

     Cancer Surgery
     Prognosis: 50-50
     A Valediction
     Room 238: Old Woman and Hummingbird
     Chemo Side Effects: Memory
     Chemo Side Effects: Vision
     Childless
     Forty-Eight Years
     Granted a Stay
     First Days Back at Work
     Chameleon Hours
     Ways of Going
      Farewell Desires

FOUR

     Home Is the Sailor
     For Jenny
     The Runt Lily
     Since I Last Saw You
 
FIVE

     World War II Watchtower
     Crux
     Pauper, Boston
     Vuillard Interior
     Where Your Treasure Is
     US Post Office, December 22
     Two Cowboys
     Ruin
     Heron, Tampa
     Tested
     Epitaph for Diane
     Edwin Partridge
     Snail Halfway Across the Road
     From Festes's Self-Help Book
     Unknown Artists
     Phoenix
     Snapshots of Our Afterlife
     Small Vessel

     Notes
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