WHEN, FOR A MOMENT, I GROW WEARY

 

When, for a moment, I grow weary

from the endless news reports of bombs

dropping from bleak winter skies

and the faceless tanks nudging their way

through streets clogged with rubble,

I turn my mind instead back to that little girl

cradling her ragged doll at her side, there

in the long silence of the subway tunnel

that for tonight has become her bed.

I want to tell her that everything will be alright,

even if that is another bedtime fable,

to sing to her gently, in her own language,

as I would to my own child, who sleeps

at this moment in a warm tangle of sheets,

mouth agape, dreaming, I imagine,

of flight, and of saving this broken world.

I have not yet found the perfect words

or melody to make this promise happen,

cannot quite decipher my own voice

through a distance as immeasurable as this,

this lullaby merely a litany of questions

turning endlessly back upon itself.

Is the lesson simply that we learn no lessons,

that the old names must soon be worn

smooth to make way for the new?

Still, I continue, offering the only comfort

I can summon, the stubborn light of

one still standing, unable to turn away.

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.

A CALL IN THE NIGHT

 

What to make, then, of this lone bird calling out, long before the first glimmer of morning light? Maybe she has dreamed a human dream, I think, and woke in a terrible fright. Or maybe, like all of us, she just wanted to make sure that the world was still here. She hears the sound of her own voice echoing, one small proclamation among the silence of leaves and stars, her voice declaring only her own bird-ness. She feels the breeze, the air shifting imperceptibly around her song, feels the breath of something larger stirring in the dark. And she is at ease once again.

HAIRCUT

 

There was a time when you would

never have let her get this close,

a time when neither of you could be in

the same room for more than a moment.

Her touch was not of your concern,

her words no longer yours to decipher.

But you have no one else to ask

to help with this most ordinary of tasks;

so here you sit, pale and shirtless

in the porcelain chill of bathroom light

as she trims and snips, seemingly

at random, cautiously maneuvering

the electric trimmer across the contours

of your skull, rounding the arches

above your ears, stepping back to consider,

then moving closer, as a lover might

that moment just before a first kiss.

You will not speak of this as an intimacy.

You will manage a simple Thank you,

reaching quickly for the worn shirt

hanging haphazardly from the radiator,

as if suddenly realizing that you were late

for one appointment or another, or that

something you could not quite name

had startled you into movement.

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.

BROTHER SONG

 

Brother, have you at last earned

the peace and solitude

which somehow eluded you

on this side of the earth?

Perhaps you speak now in ways

I cannot hope to understand:

the repeating parentheses

of gently falling snow,

insistent pulse of a birch tapping

against the window glass,

sudden shock of a crow wing torn

and frozen to the sidewalk.

You, who saved up your words

like trinkets for a rainy day,

offer no reply but this,

the space you have shaped

in your former image.

Or perhaps your silence has

become your song at last,

the one you had been secretly

rehearsing all along.

THE MISSING FINGER

 

(for Nels Natus, 1896-1959)

In one version, your grandfather walks

purposely through the gently rustling field,

his steps only slightly wider than usual,

jaw clenched, mouth pulled inward,

holding in one upheld hand the finger

which the shears have suddenly removed.

In the barn, the sheep wait, perplexed,

half-kneeling, dark blood not their own

already seeping into damp wood and straw.

In another telling, he angles the gun

as though it were another limb, one eye

closed to the world of dancing summer leaves,

of soft breezes and silent water winding

back upon itself. He is an easy target

for himself, the burnt smell of flesh strangely

familiar, as the war draft notice flutters

on the kitchen linoleum, nearly rising into flight.

No one is left now to remember, or to claim

this as anything other than simple curiosity.

Yet in your mind's eye you can clearly see him,

his worn denim sleeve waving tentatively

to someone in the distance, someone whom

he cannot make out, his face nearly concealed

by a passing cloud of sepia and dust.

But you know it's him by what is missing,

the way the moonlight slashes through

unexpectedly -- once, then again.