HAUNTED HOUSE

 

Throughout the sweltering day at the fair,

strolling the miles of sticky, littered sidewalks,

air thick with the smell of August sweat,

beer, and sugar spun a hundred different ways,

my young daughter pleads repeatedly

to enter the dark gates of the haunted house.

She is drawn by the canned siren screams

piped through speakers perched on either side

of the cemetery's artificial grass, entranced

by the cool, gray tombstones hovering

above a shifting sea of mist, the thin limbs

of skeletons reaching up from below.

She wants nothing more than to be scared

out of her flesh, laughing all the while.

Each time we pass I must remind her that

the spooky castle, as she calls it, is meant only

for bigger kids, and each time I am met

with an exaggerated sigh of disappointment.

I do not speak of my own quiet fears,

the worst ones that eventually came true

or were erased by others more immediate,

ones that settled in like unwelcome squatters,

nudging one another to make room;

nor do I mention every terror that I hold

on her behalf, ones I cannot yet see, but sense

feeding on shadow, gathering strength.

One day she will turn away from my warnings.

One day I will have to let go just enough,

let the devils dance in their costumes

of flesh, and every mad beast around her roar;

one day I must trust the light within her

to repel every ghost yet to come.

TUNNEL OF LOVE

 

Were we so easily amused a mere hundred years ago? Was the achingly slow motion of these tiny painted boats crawling through the water a thrill worth paying for, while we sweated through our starched, buttoned shirts and summer wool, hands folded like sleeping birds in our laps? Was it somehow old, even when it was new, creaking as though every motion would be its last, the thinnest shafts of light breaking through its walls? No, you assure me, It's meant to be this slow, so slow that you hardly realize you're moving. It's meant to go nowhere, letting you out right where you came in. Look around. There's a reason it has the longest lines of anything else out here.

THE HIMMELI ARTIST

 

Bring to me a field of endless rye

and place it in my hand.

Bring to me, too, the hand itself before

it stops to thread the needle.

Bring to me the thick urgency of soil

spinning green into shoots of golden brown.

Bring to me the consistency

of late summer sun, steadfast as a stone,

never once receding from view.

Bring to me the cleanest line drawn

from one end of the horizon to the other,

the landscape behind your eye.

Bring to me the everyday miracle

of bread, to be hung upon the open air,

the warm kitchen light that holds it

like a newborn to the world.

Bring to me the mathematics of love,

the endless intricacies of its music,

and the silence both contain.

Bring to me the sacred geometry of ladders,

those patterns within patterns,

the endless steps without ascension.

Bring to me your castle made of doorways,

one entrance leading into another.

Bring to me your rooms without room.

Bring to me the exact intersection

where we, dear friend, may one day meet,

our words spinning gently as leaves,

our glances finally understood.

DOG DAY LULLABY

 

It's morning still, and already 95 degrees.

The heat has come early and stayed,

settled in like an unwelcome guest,

clinging to everything, walking through

walls and windows, warping the closet doors

and desk drawers, weighing down

the pockets of our thin, damp clothing.

The ceiling fans turn without pause, as does

our world, of course, but slowly, slowly.

The birds have retreated into leaf-shadow.

The dogs make no sound but breath.

The daylilies bend wearily toward the earth.

From our balcony, amongst our collection

of winged seeds and twigs, my daughter

sings a song to the trees, soft and melodious,

words blowing through her at their ease,

repeating the sounds that please her.

It's a lullaby, she explains, to lull them to sleep;

and it's true, the trees seem to be hardly

moving now, as if granted a secret reprieve

by one who shares their native language.

In this way, our day has been blessed.

In this way, the air itself made light again.

THE NEARNESS OF THE LANDLINE

 

No one sounded far away in those days,

our voices traveling through the seemingly

endless wire, across cities and fields,

great bodies of water that we could never

have crossed by ourselves alone.

We could talk for hours if we were so inclined,

listening, our ears growing hot beneath

the receiver's unlit stars, saying everything

while outwardly not saying much at all.

We could hear the slightest crinkle of fabric

shifting, the restless tapping of a finger

against the soft contours of the bed,

the puff and crackle of a clove cigarette.

We could hear sound before the sound itself.

Our conversations were not dropped.

Sometimes they lingered for years.

Some, perhaps, have yet to be resolved.

But we were never afraid of silence,

never in a hurry to interrupt or explain.

We could hold the line long into the night,

the weight of its body hard against our chests,

the thick, unruly cord forever tangled,

our tired voices unspooling into breath.

"Are you still there?," I can almost hear you

whisper, as we drifted closer into sleep,

each of us in our own separate worlds,

each of us weighted with a separate longing.

We may never find the proper response.

We may never be that close again.

TANGLETOWN

 

I like best walking these twisting roads

alone, the evening just beginning

to settle in, cars cooling along the curbs,

a few lights on here and there.

I like best getting lost when it's still

somehow a choice, one unexpected turn

leading imperceptibly to the next,

where I can think or not think,

carry my ghosts on either shoulder

without the slightest exertion.

I like best to hear the grasses exhale,

the leaves perform their fan dance

against a shifting cobalt sky,

breathe the fleeting breath of lilac,

their delicate wonder already receding.

I read the pictographs that the kids

have left upon the sidewalks,

small messages of hope and whimsy

more dependable than the street signs,

which seem to point randomly

into trees, yards, and roundabouts.

I have come to appreciate the beauty

of this unknowing, where almost

any path can bring you unexpectedly

home -- which is to say, right back

here, where you started from.

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."