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.

GARAGE SALE

 

Someone, somewhere, has that missing arm

that snaps neatly into Barbie's shoulder;

someone can patch up those jeans, torn and frayed

by time, clean out that ancient coffee pot.

Someone needs an 8-track player in their Chevy,

a jar of random buttons, ball of rubber bands,

someone needs that painting of Jesus knocking

at the door, rays of gold light drifting out.

Someone can restring and tune that guitar.

Someone never read that book in high school,

or heard that album at the right time in their life.

Someone has looked everywhere for that,

then forgotten all about it, then looked again.

Someone has decided to take up bowling.

Someone can save that withering plant.

Someone has just the right photo -- graduation

or wedding portrait -- for that antique frame,

its tarnished brass edges pointing outward

like stars, its bed of black felt empty beneath

the dusty glass, waiting for someone to step inside,

turn on the lights, claim their rightful place.

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.

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.

MY MOTHER'S SAINT PAUL

 

Before my mother moved to the other side

of the country, leaving only her guitar for safekeeping,

she wanted to drive the city one last time,

to claim and to remember, startling me with

a sudden and unbidden openness,

I had never in my life witnessed from her.

She drove slowly, intentionally so, in that big white boat

of a car, down University Avenue, a street

we never ventured near as kids, nothing but

adult bookstores, porn theaters, and seedy bars.

We heard stories, locked the car doors when riding past.

Those old ghosts were gone now, along with

the small honky tonks she once played, underage,

the low-tiled ceilings yellow with smoke,

barely tall enough to accommodate an upright bass.

We rounded the smooth asphalt encircling Como Lake,

the zoo just up the hill, the same trickling waterfall

where as kids we were chased off by security.

The White Castle where she worked as a teenager

was still serving up greasy sliders with onions,

and the baseball diamond at Mechanical Arts school

where she played with the boys after school

looked very much the same to her eyes.

She speaks, lastly, of the childhood home

that never quite was, the collective nightmare

that she and her sisters somehow survived.

What does it mean, I wondered, retracing the maps

of our past, searching for structure, for patterns,

a road back that might in turn lead safely out?

We want, if nothing else, a narrative that makes sense.

This is the house where she learned to play,

she says, practicing for hours until her fingers bled,

and this is where she first saw snow falling

at the age of six, running outside in audible wonder,

this skinny girl from the hollers of Tennessee,

looking up and up, tasting each frozen star

upon her tongue, so cold they startled each time,

their small light disappearing on contact.

LAYOVER

 

When I find myself walking through the airport,

the enormous glass walls filled with sky

and my own meager reflection, ostensibly

just another middle-aged traveler wandering lost,

I am, unbeknownst to others, suddenly

thirteen years old again, traversing that strange city

of flight alone, disregarding the instructions given

to me by the kindly airport attendant, a young woman

in a wine-colored smock and neatly-tied scarf

smelling vaguely of vanilla and lavender.

I had never flown, and found myself suddenly

on a solo endeavor, anxiously en route

to stay with my brother or sister out west --

no one had quite determined where

I would end up -- the quietly stubborn kid

enamored with music and poetry, the mysterious world

of girls from which they all seemed to emanate.

My mother, who no longer wanted the job,

would be staying where she was, taking yet another

sabbatical from her parenting career.

So, I found myself on layover, hovering between

cities, and between lives, daydreaming past

the gift shops and baggage carousels,

the lounges overflowing with beery conversation

as the Cubs struggled to pull out a win.

I suppose my mother meant to impart a lesson,

but I already knew how to leave

and not look back, knew how to get lost

in the secret rooms of self, or deep within a crowd.

Overhead, I could hear the formless voice

calling out gate numbers and departure times,

the soft-spoken warnings, as if this were all merely

a game of chance, some tickets better than

others. Who could say which was which?

I walked on, only half listening, for something

that sounded vaguely familiar, the right combination

coupled with a bit of urgency, something that

would lead me, for now, homeward.

AN AFTERNOON IN EARLY JUNE

 

It was the day of our neighborhood fair, the street closed from one end to the other to make room for carnival rides, local food vendors, and musicians. Kids with faces painted as jungle cats or superheroes strode up and down, panting dogs lapped up the water left out for them. Someone at the coffee shop had paid in advance for the next person's order, a gesture which was quickly taken up by the next, and the next, on and on, each new customer surprised by this mild act of generosity. The cash register grew quiet, the tip jar was emptied and filled again. I like to think this small, impromptu ritual went on long after I left, their smiles and nods, the polite raising of their glasses, stranger to stranger. "Kippis!," as my daughter and I say at home, a Finnish toast I first heard as "keep us" -- as in, keep us well, keep us together, keep us close to the source of this love, whatever the name. Keep us here, savoring that first sweet sip the whole length of the day.

BREAKDOWN

 

When my mother returned from the hospital -- the place where I was born a few short years before -- came back after several rounds of what were then known as shock treatments, she didn't come back all the way. Her cool blue eyes seemed to be somewhere else, her words slower and distant, as if trailing behind her from the next room. When she would occasionally forget the names of my brother and me, or get us mixed up, I didn't understand. I wondered who this woman was, and whether the right mother had been sent home to us. She spent much of her time in bed, unread magazines and bottles of pills balanced beside her, monotonous flicker of the black-and-white TV her only window to the outside. But I liked when she played her guitar for us, when whatever had been taken from her seemed to return, at least in part, her voice becoming almost a smile. She would sing those old country hymns and children's songs, murder ballads which I later found she had changed the words to, for our sake. Even within the beauty of such music, she seemed to be saying, the world was a frightening place, violent without warning, and whatever path you chose was yours to walk, and walk alone.

BLUES FOR ROBERT BLY AND HONEYBOY EDWARDS

 

Robert Bly and Honeyboy Edwards would have

understood each other well, I think.

When I saw Honeyboy, already in his 90s

by then, small and sinewy, the bones of his face

shining through, his skin polished to

an elegant sheen that only comes with age,

he was playing to a small lecture hall

at the university, and when called back

for an encore, proceeded to play the same tune

he had played two songs in. He must have

known hundreds of songs by then, dating back

to the beginning of this American century,

but he wanted us, for whatever reason, to hear

that one again -- or he was simply playing it

for his own amusement, the particular joy and beauty

of doing whatever you damn well please,

another gift granted only to those who endure.

It reminded me of Bly, reading the same line

of poetry over again, pausing, gazing up

to see if it had resonated with those in attendance.

This, too, is the blues after all -- repeating

the refrain one has just sung, letting it linger,

roll off the tongue once more, in no hurry

for the resolution that may or may not come.

There is no end to this kind of song.

When a great singer says, "Take it from the top,"

what they mean is, "Go back all the way."

THIS MUST BE THE PLACE

 

It was late in December, and you were

visiting from the coast, the thick snow falling

all around us as if in slow motion,

the tires of the car, so low to the ground,

rounding the corners in silence.

You were pointing out the streets and storefronts

you remembered, spoke of friends long since

moved away, turning down a side street

to point out the brownstone where you once lived,

its windows unusually small, its soft yellow light

seemingly from another time and place.

You put in that old cassette, fingers half frozen,

someone singing, as so many others have,

about home -- a little flat, a little off key, but familiar

enough that we remembered every word,

the way a kiss, or the touch of a hand can return

years later, as if they never had left.

How could I tell you in the stillness of that

moment -- you gazing dreamily into your past,

that this -- this very moment -- felt like home to me,

somewhere I longed to stay, if only for a while,

the breath of our words finding each other

without hurry, our jackets smelling of wet sky,

the frozen earth rising, imperceptibly,

to hold us there, before moving on again.

CAESURA

 

Sibelius, too, near the end,

learned to love silence

more so than the notes which

he once constructed,

held one finger up to the air,

as though about to sign

his name -- but, of course,

his name was already there.

MISUNDERSTANDING THE LYRIC

 

In a few years' time, no one will remember

the popular songs you once butchered the lyrics to

in high school and beyond, so earnest in

your questioning and pronouncements,

so assured in your leather-jacketed wisdom,

singing them, with the others,

hopelessly off-key for good measure.

But then, maybe "negative two plus three"

was a clever way of denoting

the very aloneness of one,

and "guard your angels" sage advice;

maybe "take the back right turn"

were clear directions to a club where

none of you got old; and that brown-eyed girl

with sunburned legs, the one you kissed

and whispered soft lies to, never got cancer,

nor buried a son at seventeen.

So much begins and ends this way --

two strong voices speaking words in the wrong order,

or into the wrong ear, simple, melodic,

and ultimately nonsensical. So much hinges

on the misheard and unspoken.

Back then, you were certain there was

a difference between one desire and another;

back then, you were certain that

every song was somehow a love song.

And, in this, you were right.

MY MOTHER'S GUITAR

 

My mother's guitar, silent now these

past few years, rests in a corner of the room,

behind that old worn chair, each weary,

each leaning in their separate directions.

I remember clearly the first songs

it offered up: Froggy Went A-Courtin,

Blowin' in the Wind, The Wayfaring Stranger,

remember, too, the warm earthen smell

inside its Bible-black case, the ghost image

of its six strings in that gold plush lining,

long, thin roads disappearing into themselves;

I can see the wooden cathedral hidden

within the sound hole, small sparks

of angled light drifting in and out of view.

The hands that made those chords ring have

flown like birds, far away, hands gone

arthritic, fingers alternately tingling and numb.

But I can still feel the fine ridges wrapped

around each string, how the smallest touch

sounded like a secret being whispered,

a kind of conjuring with no need for words.

It rests here now, between journeys, exhaling

nearly audibly, holds its songs closely,

forever patient in its memories, its history,

its knowing, not forgetting the breath

and blood that rose to meet it,

not letting go of any of it. Not just yet.

HEART

 

I always thought I was simply too shy

for all those dances in the cavernous school

gymnasium, shadowing the tiled wall

while trying to appear casual, prickly sweat

mingled with drugstore perfume,

and the lights never quite dim enough,

young voices rising above the pulse of music,

searching out each other, everyone

seemingly too close and too far at once.

But perhaps it was you all along,

faulty timekeeper, clumsy blood hammer

building your secret rooms, nail by crooked nail.

You never listened well, that much

is for certain, never kept a steady beat,

just made it up as you went along,

always slightly ahead or behind,

daydreaming yourself nearly out of a job.

Heart, those bright-eyed teenage girls

have long since waltzed calmly into middle age,

and I am no jazz poet. Let's sing one

of the old songs tonight, something sweet

and simple, one that begins with barely

a whisper. You know the one.

Stay with me for just a while longer.

USED RECORD STORE

 

You can smell the basements of long ago

here within these cardboard sleeves,

slender spines creased and breaking apart,

can almost feel the dampness seeping through

the cold cinder blocks, stale cigarette smoke

and voices turned suddenly into ghosts.

You can hold the shroud of another world

half-awake, waiting to be rediscovered,

can wander aimlessly the long, narrow aisles,

the way you did when you were still a kid,

hungry for any sign of life to find you.

You thought those songs would last forever,

the way summer did in every chorus,

repeating endlessly into a silence not quite.

You thought that girl who taught you

to kiss would stay just a moment longer.

the sound of her laughter like the incantation

of something just beyond your reach.

You are still searching, thumbing the racks

for something you may have missed,

still looking and listening for a message

that has taken so long to find you.

MUSIC BOX

 

My daughter turns the match-thin handle

of the music box, its tiny metal teeth

plucking out "Love Me Tender"

with the bright clarity of a child's lullaby,

slowing and increasing the tempo

of this tune she has learned this way,

its simple notes rising and falling

from her steady outstretched palm.

When I was her age, my older brother

and I rode in the back of a sweltering hot

station wagon while a calm and serious voice

broke through the radio announcing

that Elvis Presley, a man who seemed

to me to be from another planet, had died

suddenly, at his home in Memphis.

Death was a gray and mysterious thing;

but I knew that it meant an absence,

a silence which no one came back from.

Yet music lives upon air, much longer

than breath alone, writing and rewriting

itself at will -- and here it is again

on this most ordinary day in autumn,

dry leaves tapping at the window glass;

a day made all the more lovely by its brevity,

and because we are here to speak of it.

Which is to say that there is no need

for the saying, no need at all. This song,

however small, will do just fine.