Memory Ode
History rounds off skeletons to zero.
Szymborska
Boy returning from a field striped
in blood from a blow to the chin
glad to have played mad to launch
into air for a ball–if I call more
gently than I call our skittish stray
as she scampers yard to yard
wondering at her brief freedom
in new snow can I
lure you back from oblivion
In that ashen town
I only know what got
torn down and who moved out
When King was not yet dead
was all already falling forward
like a mover hauling boxes
to a van and missing a step
The dog slinks back
whiskers bright with frost
to walk beside us over snow
Skittish though you are answer
with your fragmentary speech
I won’t ask how your father
navigated between wars how
your life turned into the one
I’ll lead for a while longer
Only how time creeps and why
the elements have flown apart
An earth almost incontinent
to bury us shifts Water rises
inexorable as droughts that bake us
Air carries a hint of sulphur
Only fire remains faithful–fuel
and breath and spark and dawn
I Am Not One of Those
who hates arriving early.
I’ll let coffee cool,
let the heat of the mug
warm my hands. I can wait
without filling the air with noise.
At the river of sound a monk
dips his ladle, pulls out a chime
and prays. No monk, I pray
poorly, stomach growling
at a table on an empty sidewalk
while a song arranges itself
from car horns and sirens.
A mourning dove stops me
with a question and I answer
with a few of my own.
Now that my friend is gone,
who will remember what
made him laugh? Why does
laughter die out so soon?
Why do fools fall into power?
And why does cruelty
come naturally to us?
On a bank, a monk dreams
above the water’s lisp.