Analysis of "At Last" by Gerald Stern

At Last by Etta James

Listen to this a couple times over and then come back to this poem.  Or read this poem and then listen.  They are in conversation with each other.  But how much in conversation.

The opening line of this poem and Etta James song deals with time with the poem starting off with time getting shorter every year, and Etta James singing her lonely days are over.  However, after the opening line the poem goes to a surreal trip down a memory lane "and we broke into sound the slightest lash of the / feather duster and we had bricks up our sleeves".  What type of sound did the speaker and this other break into?  A cry? A laugh? Does it matter?  A unified sound.  What does the bricks represent?  Maybe take a brick as a brick -- something that is thought of weight.

you can't imagine and climbed three steps at a time--

though one of the version was we never got there

or one of us got there first by banging the dashboard,

though I'd say it was getting there and not getting there

The poem doesn't have any periods, so the "you can't imagine [...]" part could refer to the bricks as well.  In either case, the speaker is referring to a you that climbed higher than the speaker.  Then there's this sort of haze with reality -- did they get there at all?  Or someone gat there first.  For me, its seems the speaker is not totally focused on the goal or location, but just being with this person at a this location -- at last.  

and banging had nothing to do with it
except it was Etta James if that means anything
and it was a kind of reunion after twenty
minutes of silence and we 
sang together though they were different songs.

the "banging" refers to who hit the dashboard and now means nothing except there was the song by Etta James playing "if that means anything".  This poem is trying to define meaning on an existential reality of who is there.

And in this memory, it's a reunion.  The silence referring to the lack of conversation between the speaker and the other.  I think the last two lines are more metaphorical that together they were harmonious, but on different songs.  Different definitions of songs.