MYSTERY LIGHT

 

Sometimes, when I'm in an old building --
marble floors and dark wood smelling of history --
I can't help but press one of the light switches
on the wall, those ancient metal buttons
blackened by the touch of countless fingers,
curious to see if they are still functional.
I did the same as a kid, in church basements
and schools, houses with unfinished attics,
half-expecting someone to storm through the door,
demanding to know who flipped the switch,
the one that controlled the whole neighborhood.
We certainly lived in enough places with wiring
from the turn of the century, lights flickering,
unsure if they wanted to work or not;
some you'd have to flip three times, rapidly,
to wake, or press with just the right force.
Not surprisingly, more than one of those houses
burned to the ground after we had left.
These days -- so many years turned to shadow
in my periphery -- I can't help but wonder,
against my own reason, if I'm turning on the light
in some distant room of the past, my brother
blowing ribbons of cigarette smoke, balanced on
the narrow window ledge, my older sister
curling her hair for a date, telling another corny joke.
There are rooms I would not want to enter --
some known, some forever closed -- but I'd take
my chances to see those faces lit up again.

UNCLE WILLARD

 

Uncle Willard's hands were shaped much like

my mother's, though larger, with flat-tipped fingers

able to reach and find what my mother called

those fancy chords on the neck of his red guitar,

hollow-bodied -- a box, some players called it --

beautiful and mysterious to the eyes of a young child,

too shy to sing but eager to gather those secrets.

He'd come by on Saturdays, or Sunday after church,

to our place in the housing projects, asking

if she wanted to do some picking, over coffee,

knowing already that she did -- of course she did.

It was only later, much later, that my mother

told me how he had made the trip to the hospital

when I was born, after Dr. Sergeant -- the man

who had delivered her other four babies

and remembered them all by name -- told her

that I was dying, unable to gather and hold

enough oxygen, that I would not last the night.

He arrived, mom said, well past visiting hours, with

his guitar, and his worn and annotated Bible,

anointed my head with oil -- for he was a preacher

as much as a player -- reading passages of scripture,

praying the long autumn hours into morning;

and I am sorry now that I did not speak to him of

this during his lifetime; I am sorry that I have waited

all these years -- decades of unintended silence --

simply to thank him for drawing from my small lips

those first few gasping attempts at song.

TURN YOUR RADIO ON

 

Walking past the small church

on the corner today, so unassuming

that you might miss it, I stopped

to gaze at the radio tower, its thin needle

nearly piercing the chilly blue sky,

a steeple once lit with the living spirit,

or so we were assured as children.

I could almost hear my mother

singing those old country hymns

across the crackling airwaves,

long out of fashion, but reaching out

for whomever might need them.

"Get in touch with God," she would sing

in earnest, "Turn your radio on."

What strikes me now is the silence,

not of reverence but of neglect,

as if the neutral brick and worn boards

were sinking into themselves.

Perhaps it is the quiet of knowing,

the calm certainty of not having

to meet every voice with your own.

But the old transmitter glints brightly

in the sun, reaches toward the heavens,

as if in expectation, and the songs

my mother once sang are now

mine alone to hum as I walk on by.

DAYS OF SINGING

 

In those days, everyone seemed

to be singing. My mother sang the old

country hymns, the simple notes

from her guitar ringing clear and warm,

the mystery of words casting its first spell.

We all sang in church, even those

of us who could not, our thin Midwest

voices graciously lifted by those

whose joyful noisemaking rose to the rafters.

We sang at school to remember

the names of states and presidents,

invented name-songs for the pretty girls

we were still too shy to speak to.

We sang to pass the time, to count the miles

on field trips, and the long, dull drives

in our family's failing station wagons.

We sang in grocery stores and restaurants,

the teenage waiter, surely underpaid,

singing as he brought you your slice of

birthday cake, sparkling proudly with light.

The radio and television gave to us

a seemingly endless variety of jingles,

the housewives, children, and store clerks

filled with sudden musical wonder

brought on by new detergents,

deodorants, and breakfast cereals.

Nearly everything, it seemed, was worth

singing about. And everyone hummed along.

I don't know when the singing stopped,

or if any of us noticed. We had lives,

jobs, worries that we held close in silence.

But these days much of my life is again

narrated in song, measured out

by a spirited daughter, who praises

the sun and the rain without question,

who conjures goblins in hushed, lower tones,

sings the months of the year in Spanish,

and offers a silly rhyme up for her old man.

"Dad, do you like my song?," she asks

from the other room, knowing my reply

in advance; and I call back to her, from what

suddenly feels like a distance of years,

"Yes! Let me hear it one more time."