FIRST GENERATION

 

Our grandparents sent long, descriptive letters from across the ocean, while we recited the pledge of allegiance to a flag of forty-eight stars in a one-room schoolhouse, the familiar language of home left at the door, along with the breath-damp wool of scarves and mittens in winter. I am an American now, we were made to recite again and again, and to write it in our notebooks until it became as familiar as our own names, the names which others could not or would not pronounce correctly, and could alter with the stroke of a pen. Our prayers, too, were in English, but only when spoken out loud. Our parents, aunts, and uncles braided the old language with the new, sometimes losing track, beginning again, sometimes inventing a new word where no other could be found. But our silence, in endless variations, was easily understood, neither awkward nor American. It sat as easily as a hammock stretched between two pines, swaying gently from east to west, responsive to the slightest breeze.

ON THE RURAL ROUTE

 

We arrived in the heat-thrum of summer

without warning, two young towheaded aliens from

the land of housing projects and junk yards

commandeered as playgrounds, spent the newly

lengthening days wandering, seeking out box turtles

and toads, garter snakes, plucking fat shining ticks

and the dark tongues of slugs from our sunburned arms

and legs, setting out on small, rickety boats, each

painted a different shade of ever-peeling blue,

puffy orange life vests smelling of must,

of those thick, watery seasons long since passed.

In the winter months, the school bus sometimes

could not get through, and the snowplows were slow

to find us, scraping their stubborn way up that

narrow curve of road to our small scattering

of cabins barely visible, the deep-frozen lake on one

side and the deep hibernating fields on the other,

furrows grown hard as gravestone beneath.

The small black-and-white TV was mostly snow

as well, only one local channel's signal strong enough

to reach our clothes-hanger antenna, giving us

the news we could easily see for ourselves.

The weighted sky hung low, the white earth rising

to meet it, growing closer from all directions,

while all else in the world became hopelessly far away,

our lessons for the day stretched out before us,

waiting to be written, before the early fall of dark.

RITUAL

 

In those days, back in the hills of Tennessee, you knew why

the church bell tolled at an unusual hour of the day,

sometimes signaling with a few short hammer strokes,

sometimes slow and sustained, going on and on,

ringing out once for each year of a life now passed.

Someone had to cover the windows and mirrors,

lest the spirit enter and be trapped inside the glass.

Someone had to edge the stationary in black, and to stop

the clocks, as they had stopped for the departed.

Someone had to wash the body, a sacred rite for the closest

of kin, neither to be hurried nor turned away from.

Someone had to stay up with the body, keeping watch,

wildflowers and juniper masking the smell of decay,

mingling with the warm comfort of constantly brewing coffee.

My mother has not forgotten placing silver dollars

on the eyelids of aunts and uncles, of touching

the hand of the deceased in the belief that it would

remove a blemish, which she says it did. But my mother --

having buried her parents, siblings, and two children

at early ages -- is a lifetime removed from that wide-eyed girl,

and from that sepia-tinted world of front porch songs

and white whiskey, of tobacco leaves on bee stings

and a pair of good overalls for Sunday, a Ball jar of pickled

pig's feet and a can of bacon grease above the stove.

She has requested for herself that there be no ceremony,

no tributes, no songs to be song or scripture read,

and above all, no one gazing upon her body.

Perhaps she is simply removing the trappings of this world

in advance, blotting out the unnecessary, the gaps

in her memory becoming the narrowest of bridges now;

her prayers -- whatever they may hold, in whatever

order recited -- require no words to be lifted.

MY GRANDFATHER'S DAY BOOK

 

Worn and dappled with age, it creaks slightly upon opening, must in its creases, a small narrow door leading immediately into the past. The winding blue script within -- all of it in Finnish -- I can only translate in part, a reminder that language, like memory, can only take us so far. What is left out of this ledger -- this list of dates, facts, and figures -- must write its own story elsewhere. There is no listing for the cost of whiskey and cigarettes, no mention of the son drowned on the other side of the world, nor the wife who followed soon after, no price mentioned for the arsenic that took her. The margins are narrow. There is room only for what he is willing to record, that which makes sense and can be easily measured. I don't know where my own days stand, so many squandered with laziness, the stubborn refusal of youth, so many unaccounted for. I know only that their shadow grows long, no matter which direction I stand. If I am found lacking, grandfather, let these words be a start, let my debt be paid in the telling.

SNAPSHOT FROM MY MOTHER'S WEDDING

 

My brother stands just outside the door frame,

a small coffee cup in hand, while I sit on a folding chair,

thin and lanky in a too-big secondhand suit,

hunched forward, scribbling in a moss-colored notebook.

Neither of us particularly wants to be here -- though

of course we cannot say -- the pastel carnations pinned

to our chests belying our expressionless faces.

Our mother is marrying for the third time -- this time

to a good old boy from south Texas who no one

cares for or trusts more than the weather here in spring.

This was before he spit her name out like a curse,

his hands having become more menace than comfort,

and certainly before he held a shotgun to her head,

threatening to paint the wood-paneled walls with whatever

thoughts and dreams she might have left inside her;

and it's a few years before my brother lifted him

by the neck, dangling like a scarecrow in stocking feet,

eyes popping like buttons, holding him there calmly,

steadily, breathing hard but slowly, until our sister's shouts

convinced him to at last let go, allowing him to fall.

But this is not that moment; this is merely a snapshot

of that young man, having found a quiet corner

for a moment, writing his way towards all he cannot

know, his left hand curling above the page, pale sunlight

filtered from another room, hovering like smoke.

MY MOTHER'S CHINA

 

My mother's china -- bone-white, heavy in young hands,
encircled with a pattern of sky-blue flowers
and filigree, tiny leaves pointing in all directions
at once -- emerged from the far reaches of the cupboards
only twice a year -- Thanksgiving, and Christmas.
It was a set acquired, piece by piece, each having its day,
by saving up a small fortune in S&H green stamps
from the local Red Owl -- the delicate teacups
and saucers, the weighted serving tray, dinner plates
and bread plates, a cream pitcher for coffee.
Even butter claimed its own home -- such extravagance!
Yet we could not have know -- how could we? --
what such an ordinary luxury might mean to our mother,
to at last have something simple and fine, something stately
among the brick and cinder block of the projects,
the mountain girl from Tennessee, denied even a doll
or summertime shoes, trying hard to forget one
lifetime while imaging another, brighter somehow,
which might or might not choose to emerge.
But twice a year, at least, we drank our milk from goblets
like royalty, poured our canned, grayish vegetables
and gelatinous cranberry sauce onto what we imagined
must have been the prettiest plates in town,
while that gravy boat, loaded with thick, brown cargo,
sat motionless among the white cloth of its waters,
dreaming already of the long voyage home,
its sturdy bow not to be seen again for months.

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.

AIRPORT SUNRISE

When I was a kid, and you could do so, I loved

to wander through the vast, complex city of the airport,

past its chintzy gift shops and stuffy bars,

wafts of blue-tinged smoke and stale beer drifting

out into the clamor of air-conditioned lobbies,

where everything was in motion, the lives

of strangers and their families suddenly so close,

everyone embracing, everyone either waving

goodbye or hello for the first time in years.

Someone was always crying, sometimes a whole

congregation, shuddering as if from the cold.

Someone, you suspected, might never be seen again.

I would have been there with one of my sisters,

visiting from, or returning to, their separate family

in California, a mysterious land of earthquakes,

sun, and ocean, where the only snow they ever saw

came from postcards or their TV screens.

I loved the enormous glass walls at the terminals,

how they scaled upward seemingly without end, drifting

into shadow, the mighty and monstrous planes

gleaming on the tarmac, tiny men waving

each of them this way and that, flares in hand,

signaling in a language no one else could fathom.

I loved to see the sun hovering on the horizon,

throwing out a few tentative ropes of light,

then pulling itself up in earnest, blanketing this

flat and slightly tilted corner of the world; and I, too,

would be waving a solemn goodbye as my sister,

along with the other passengers, slump-shouldered,

moved forward down that accordion-like tunnel,

something small closing behind each of them,

like the shadow of a page being turned, sparks of blue

and yellow from a doorway I could not see.

FAST

 

You were always so fast, brother, even when we

were just kids back in the housing projects;

couldn't sit still, your limbs constantly fidgeting,

growing long and quick seemingly overnight,

your lankiness slowly turning into grace.

You were always in pursuit of something else,

something new, risky, while I, the annoying kid brother,

could never keep up, tagging along though I did,

daydreaming, awkward within my own skin.

You drank your first beer, kissed your first girl,

unclasped your first bra as though there was no time

to lose, as though they were the only things

that mattered in a life you could already see drawing

to a close, as though you were on a timeline

the rest of us could neither see nor understand.

When you said, as casually as though commenting

on the weather, that you'd never make it to forty,

I put it down to the whiskey, the dark romance of youth.

Only now, gone so many years, do you linger,

speaking openly as you rarely did before, no need

to rush, or to leave out any detail in the telling.

There is no road. We walk now side by side.

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.

THE UNSPOKEN

 

Part of Uncle Silas always resided in absence, the quiet and the still, his handsome face just off to the side in old photographs, gazing over his shoulder into the distance, or down at the solemn and familiar earth, smiling slightly, as if some joke or pleasantry had been spoken between them. Unlike my father, he took the cure for booze at the clinic in Duluth, telling no one, returning weeks later, clean-shaven and rested, as though he had merely driven to the grocery store and back. When he married, later in life, he didn't bother to inform the family, so averse was he to drawing attention to himself. He worked at the hospital up in Hibbing, learning the secret language of blood through the thumbnail lens of a microscope. He called it a dance. When ALS came to rob him of his touch, and then his speech, his limbs hardening like the branches of a weathered tree, he retreated further. I can see his sturdy frame receding, folding into itself, can see the old black-and-white television flickering, the news already old somehow. I can see the newspapers he could no longer hold stacked up beside him, all those words and faces gone blank, all those stories -- like his own -- waiting to be told.

By Ear

 

Sometimes, when I am writing, and I can't

quite hear the words in my mind, I speak them --

quietly -- so as not to frighten them away,

listening for the gentle resonance

of vowel sounds repeating themselves,

calling out to one another in a language of air,

their small sheltering caves echoing.

I listen for the well intentioned but uninvited,

the idea lacking grace, the bum note;

and I am reminded at times of my mother

who learned to play guitar this way,

listening closely to the Grand Old Opry

and the Hit Parade coming through that old

wooden radio, like a temple glowing,

pausing her mother's 78s again and again,

lifting its needle and setting it down at the start

to catch what didn't want to be caught,

to pull forth a sound she could already hear.

Sometimes I need to be reminded of

how to listen deeply, of the line that runs

directly from ear to heart, bypassing

all else, the sound of a single strum and a single

voice alone in a room, as simple as that,

the way all good songs begin.

THE SCENT OF THINGS

 

What I disliked most about moving into all those

different places during childhood -- houses

of family, friends of friends, or rank strangers --

was that nothing ever smelled familiar.

The dark scarred wood of dressers and doors

breathed silently in and out, the salt-grease aroma

of food arose from pots and pans long ago

scorched and settled into their particular seasoning.

Even water boiling was somehow not the same,

the grimy tea kettle hopelessly shrieking out of key.

Soap, perfumes and perspiration clung to every fold

of fabric, laundered or not, the musty basements

and dry dusty attics, the damp funk of dogs

had claimed their territory years before we arrived.

Most days I felt that I had stumbled onto a stage set

without the benefit of lines, or even motivation.

Most days came and went with neither incident

nor reason, the cloudy stove clock ticking.

The air outside felt closer to the truth, even in a place

I did not know. I followed my own tracks from

the day before, addressed the birch trees as family.

When I slept, I curled beneath the covers, knees

to elbows, even in summertime, worried that if I lost

the signature of my scent, I might lose myself for good.

NAMES

 

My daughter's name was discovered by

her mother in a crowded bookstore,

as though it had already been

spoken for years, her middle name

crooned over the car radio

en route to the hospital through

a fresh dusting of December snow.

Some of our ancestors had names that

were changed and changed again,

anglicized by those who claimed

to know best, while others were deemed

unworthy to be recorded at all.

My aunt gave names to her stillborn,

keeping their sacredness to herself,

while our mother taught my brother

and I that our names were known

to the angels, and could be removed

from the Book of Life if we lied or

took the Lord's name in vain.

I thought of this whenever I wrote

in my Big Chief notebook, or read from

my children's Bible, as I thought of

my earthly father, who too remained

faceless, refusing me the family name.

But today, the winter solstice just

behind us, I can hear the gentle swelling

of choral music from the next room --

something that could only be

expressed in Latin, voices so light and airy they can only rise -- as my daughter

calls out one request or another

that I can't quite make out.

But, of course, I answer; I answer

without hesitation, as if this too were

a kind of song I stumbled into,

and must somehow learn on the spot.

THE LAST K-MART

 

The last K-Mart department store in the country

is closing today, and I am reminded suddenly

of those long-ago Saturday afternoons, following

my brother along the forbidden shortcut

through the tall grass and weeds which ran

alongside the junkyard, fresh quarters in hand

for finishing our weekend chores, to be quickly spent

on some small novelty, or if we had pooled

our money, a new hamster to replace the one we

had just buried, our first undeniable shock

at the fleetingness of this world and all it holds.

I am reminded, too, of my brother's name

for the store: Came-Apart, which never failed

to make us laugh, remember back-to-school shopping

with our tired mother, the generic Trax sneakers

and stiff, creased denim of Husky jeans, which

became the tell-tale wardrobe of welfare kids and

project brats -- which is to say, many of us.

I remember blue light specials in the cafeteria,

and our family TV and sofa on layaway.

I wonder what will become of the gumball stands,

the rusted merry-go-round and plastic pony

outside the entrance that you could sit atop for a nickel,

dreaming of faraway prairies and open sky.

No doubt they will be hauled away for the indignity

of the landfill, or to some industrial warehouse,

while my brother sleeps the same silent sleep

that he has mastered for more than twenty years,

not far from here, not far from anywhere.

When last I checked, that shortcut was still there.

CHARLOTTE

 

Charlotte was well into her ninth decade,

with no plans for retirement, making,

slicing, and packing sandwiches

on the assembly line with the rest of us

poor souls -- perpetually bored teenagers,

dropouts, and functioning addicts trying to survive.

Her face was a wonder of lines intersecting

with lines, of worry and laughter,

one long and detailed story leading

imperceptibly into another; her skin, thin

as parchment, polished and shining

beneath the gray industrial light,

especially when she turned to smile.

Her beloved husband Frank had long since left

this life, while their children, and their children, had

grown and moved away, one to the east

and one far out west, remembering, most years,

to call at Christmas and her birthday.

"What would I do sitting at home alone?,"

she would ask to no one in particular,

answering herself with an exaggerated shrug.

Decades earlier, she had worked

at the ammunition plant not far from here,

alongside my aunt Anna Mae, counting

and packing machine gun shells for the war

six days a week, her hands perpetually

smelling of metal and oil for years.

This work was easier, much easier by far.

"Here I can eat what I make," she once quipped,

"and no one gets hurt, or killed -- just fed."