THE SOCIALIST OPERA HOUSE

 

It's long gone now, the place where the working class Finns met to raise their banners and sing the songs of labor, to act upon the stage a world that made a bit more sense, taught the lessons not yet learned. Gone now the farmers with broken English and missing fingers, the rebel girls and rabble rousers, the miners who shed their blood for a day's pay and a day of rest in this land of the free. Gone now, one dream swallowed by another when no one was looking. Though the bones of the building remain, housing yet another office, yet another bank. But the stage is still there, hollow, and long unused, holding close its secrets in dusty curtain folds and boards. The old songs are still there for any voice to lift again. The prop ship still hangs in the dust of darkened rafters, white sails torn and frayed, ready to set sail for a paradise, real or imagined, so very far from here.

MAGIC

 

My daughter pulls a coin from behind my left ear,

turning it toward the afternoon light,

smiling almost imperceptibly, obviously

pleased with this trick she has observed

somewhere, and has perfected quietly on her own.

Others soon follow: an endless river

of brightly colored cloth spilling out from

her sleeve, my fortune told by

complicated folds and triangles of paper,

the choices seemingly endless.

I pick a card from an ordinary pack,

and after a few hesitant attempts, its match

at last makes itself known.

But it's how she grew as tall as the pocket

of my work shirt, when I had left

the room for what seemed a moment,

It's that she chose to be here with us at all,

first appearing as light, then sound,

then an inexhaustible bundle of questions.

For now we stick with the simpler tricks

from her dimestore handbook,

the severed thread put back together,

the handkerchief floating like a friendly ghost

above the round house of her hand.

And I need not feign surprise or wonder

as she works her way through each.

I am, I confess, in awe of it all.

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.

ALL THE LOVE WE LAY CLAIM TO

 

My great-grandfather Juho leans forward slightly

in his chair, as though about to speak

or to reach out his hand one last time

to his beloved, at rest in the casket beside him,

its doorway already covered in handfuls of flowers

and soil, heavy and damp, the solemn faces

of men in the background looking on, weary,

their funeral suits and ties virtually interchangeable.

But the mourner up front wears his work shirt

for this, the hardest labor he has endured

in a lifetime of work, his hands having carved

long into the night a seemingly endless array of roses

and filigree into the wood, as he had once carved

into the marriage bed, and the children's cribs,

hands that look suddenly exposed and empty,

lingering like uncertain birds too long into winter.

Could he have imagined this moment when he arrived

from that other world, with neither currency

nor language, to stake his claim and break this

ground open like a sacred book of secrets?

He must have known, without ever having to say,

that the earth we till must be fed in return,

and all the love we lay claim to must be met equally

with grief, solid as the ground on which we stand.

This, it seems, is the only bargain we are offered,

our baffled silence continually interpreted as assent.

SNOWBOUND

 

Everything has moved in closer this morning, everything weighted and wet, the gray sky slung low, curbs and corners all but erased by the endless dunes of white. Up and down the block, the drone and whir of snow blowers ring out, shovels scraping, lifting precariously, nearly breaking beneath the load. Their long handles dot the landscape like makeshift memorials. Shoulder to shoulder, strangers and neighbors push and rock the stubborn boats of automobiles free, at least momentarily. Beneath our woolen layers, the sweet-pungent sweat of winter rises and falls, small clouds of breath answering one weary sigh with another. We await the night plows flashing their small lights of salvation, await even the smallest avenue of passage. For today, no one is going anywhere. Though we are working diligently, patiently to get there.

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.