Canvas 697
May 31, 2016
Tuesday, May 31, 2016
Monday, May 30, 2016
Remember the honeysuckle
Remember the honeysuckle ’gainst the
pillars on the porch? The place we were born is an open field now.
Remember the window open to the night, the breaths and sighs of
oleander bright, and tallow? We are their yield now. Here we stood,
lips parted by our pipe, in a cloud of hallowed smoke. Remember the
honeysuckle ’gainst the pillars as we spoke? It’s where I kneel
now.
Saturday, May 28, 2016
Letter to Walt Whitman, and Walt Whitman’s Reply
Following are companion entries from
the first volume of my Songs and Letters, written and posted
on consecutive days back in April 2005. I don’t pretend they are
important in any way, or even very good; heartfelt, yes, and certainly
revealing; but as to what they reveal, I will humbly, gratefully
leave to you. Gone are the days wherein I would be embarrassed by
something I’ve written. Ample are the times I might be embarrassed
by present actions, if I only had the grace and sense.
Letter to Walt Whitman
Home again. You were right. After
walking and riding across this country and looking at the land, the
sky, and people, this funny little place has changed. The streets are
still narrow, but they no longer seem bare and grim.
I’m in my mother’s kitchen. Her
lilac is ruffled by the breeze, a pie is in the oven. The lines in
her face are deeper than before. Or had I not noticed? When I told
her about sitting at your bedside, she asked, “Is there no one
looking after him?” I said you were fine, just tired. I recalled
how you had made bread that very day, written a poem, and picked a
mountain of greens. I described the firm, proud way you held your
head, and how your grip tightened on my hand when you spoke. As sad
and foolish as it seems, I didn’t tell the truth. But I know she
understood.
Thank you for the poems. Now I know
what you meant when you said they were written long ago. The words
were on his ship when brave Odysseus sailed for home. During the
course of his strange journey, they were lost a thousand times, then
found again, like stars hiding behind clouds on a stormy night. But
they did arrive, and like Odysseus, they were themselves, yet
immeasurably altered, were virgin once again.
Before coming home, I visited my
father’s grave. I looked down at where he lay, my collar turned
against the chill. It is spring, you know, but winter too, a time of
mud and blossom. A wagon rattled by. I didn’t know the driver, but
he nodded just the same. We might have been friends in another time,
or will be someday again. Then my father said, “Remember.” It was
just like him.
I also thought of you, shivering
beneath your blanket, how I stirred the fire, and saw faces in the
coals. When I turned, your lips were moving, but your eyes were shut
against the world. What poem were you dreaming then? What bright
hammer were you swinging? The day before, you said, “Come again in
summer. I’ll be stronger then.” I promised you I would, and
before June is gone, I will.
When I told my mother of my plan, she
said, “Why don’t you eat some? That’s a long time from now.”
Then she filled my bowl with stew. I am eating still. She is humming
at the stove. Like me, she would love you. But her world is here, on
the path to her garden and the cemetery. She is a wise gray anchor,
and will not forsake what she knows, while I, her lonesome, foolish
son, go on believing everything.
April 14, 2005
Walt Whitman’s Reply
My dear friend, I am truly flattered by
your concern. But I think you should spend less of your precious time
worrying about me, and more of it trying to understand yourself. Your
mother is right. It is better to know a familiar patch of earth with
all of one’s heart and senses than to seek blindly for something
that isn’t there. I am an old man, with an old body. The temple is
in decay, and the restless spirit seeks another in which to pray.
This should not concern you. Stay home and take care of your mother.
Ignore my feeble summertime request. It was symbolic — a failed
attempt to not break your heart or mine. Instead, go visit your
father at the cemetery. Talk with him there. Go on believing what he
says, go on believing everything. If you do, then I will walk
joyfully down to my own sweet end, and gaze up in wonder at the trees
and stars. They have sustained me all my life. It is time I returned
the favor.
What bright hammer was I swinging? That
is not the question. You hold the hammer now. Do not be afraid. I can
hear it ringing. You are like a god standing at his forge, with
powerful arms and chest and shoulders, mad and black with soot, with
eyes that see the world and all the savage joy that is in it — the
coursing rivers, the wild tribes of men, the snow-covered mountains
and desolate valleys vibrant and teeming with prehistoric life. It is
up to you to make your vision sing. Make the sky your bride, and the
earth will be your pillow. Take cosmic pride in all you say and do.
Fear not your own perfection, for you come by it rightfully. Do not
listen to the ministers of failure, who promise redemption for their
imagined sins. They are bitter and small, unequal to living, the
miller’s dross. Instead, bathe them in your sunshine. It is what
they least desire. Lift them up against their will, let them see
their faces in your mirror.
Outside, the weather has turned cold
again. Spring came, then frost blackened the tender growth. The
vineyard is an orderly congregation of old men standing naked. Nature
will clothe them a second time, but there will be no grapes this
year. I might never again hold a grape upon my tongue, crush it
between my teeth, and absorb its juice. When you walk the countryside
in search of poems, ponder this strange truth. Let it penetrate your
being, let its wild seed take root.
The world is yours, my friend. Seize
it. Suck gladly at its breast. Be a field for our slowly ripening
dreams. Always give your best. As your brother, as a man victorious
yet cast asunder, I exhort you to stride through the cosmos, sowing
your stars. It is an act befitting the god you are.
April 15, 2005
Thursday, May 26, 2016
misty street maple green
misty street maple green
where we meet what we seem
what we speak when we mean
maple street misty green
Tuesday, May 24, 2016
Friday, May 20, 2016
Thursday, May 19, 2016
Every bit a dandelion
Now blissfully adrift, there is no
question of weightlessness. Now working the laces on my worn out
shoes, none of gravity. Now musing on the trials of the past, none of
anxiety. Now present in the present while it lasts, I, every bit a
dandelion, bid good seed godspeed my deed of joyous carelessness. And
may you, my love, my friend, my confidante, my child, granite that and crevice
this, and I promise that, wherewhenever I am blown, will be my wish.
Tuesday, May 17, 2016
Grave-gray or sky-blue
In this week leading up to my sixtieth
birthday, I have had multiple interviews with the mad artist who made
me, and asked him, and her — for they are both simultaneously, and
in turn — not whether the current version of me represents any
desired perfection, but if it gives them satisfaction — in a word,
are you pleased, dear Madame, or am I soon to be improved in a
brighter more colorful draft with more faithful lines — or if not
more faithful, kind Sir, more deeply revealing? — or are you, as I
suspect, not quite finished works of art yourselves, because I am the
mad artist painting you? Let it be grave-gray or sky-blue, whatever
the answer — and I expect and wish for none — may I here, at
least, express my gratitude?
Monday, May 16, 2016
His own clock ticking
A human aware of his own clock ticking,
I give you the weather — as it
relates to my own,
which, having just bathed, is moist and
warm
and promising sun — a day begun
precisely so, is all that matters,
and must not be
ignored.
How dull — a man nigh sixty
at a keyboard eight years old, printed,
black,
dusty, punctuation-worn.
Yet see how he comes to the door
with no shirt on, answers well the bell
before it’s rung.
Hello — he clears his throat —
hello? —
takes special notice of the hair upon
his arm,
suddenly recalls the water in the ditch
in the sun on the farm — his
childhood,
of course — you might have it
for your own — go ahead,
take it, put it on.
Naked-born, such a short while ago —
could there be anything as long
as the interval between a doctor’s
spank
(yes, he too is gone) and the crossing
of the floor?
Yes — perhaps this poem.
Come in, come in, he cries, we’ve
been
expecting you! — and who should
return his wave
but the aching day in bloom —
petal-fall, glad you called,
oh, how good it is to be faithful note
in such a simple, sacred tune.
Sunday, May 15, 2016
Immersed again in misty gray
Such joy, after a stretch of warm, dry
days,
to be immersed again in misty gray.
Miracle within miracle,
raindrops on rose leaves.
And here am I, a world inside
the one suspended foremost,
as earth and rainbow both,
as mountain neath her veil,
as scattered seed and poppies’ moan,
as child’s shout.
How good, now,
to be in a tiny vase upon your
windowsill,
looking out with bubbles clinging to my
stem.
How good, to wake up back in bed
beside a loved one’s grave,
ripe with meaning,
without end.
Friday, May 13, 2016
Thursday, May 12, 2016
Canvas 691
Canvas 691
May 12, 2016
They gave me a pencil
and said,
Arrive at the sum!
Now see — see! —
what I have become!
Tuesday, May 10, 2016
Monday, May 9, 2016
Sunday, May 8, 2016
The faithful mirror
Isn’t it wonderful how we remember
the memories of others, and how those memories become our own, and in
turn are passed along? Take, for example, this one from my father’s
Depression Era childhood on the farm:
His mother goes out to use the
outhouse, and while she is inside, her son rains clods on that humble
splintery shelter — upon which salute she comes out roaring and
chases him through the yard, past the barn, under the mulberry tree,
he laughing, she cursing, threatening, loving him, her proud glad
heart grateful for the foolish exercise. And not just once, but
dozens of times.
And now they are gone and I am nearing
my sixtieth birthday.
It is all a painting of you, the
faithful mirror replied . . . .
Saturday, May 7, 2016
Long dashes, eyelashes
A tiny ladybug — the smallest, I’m
sure, I’ve ever seen — the eraser on the end of a pencil would be
a roomy perch for five or six of her size, not much bigger than the
spots on an adult — somehow got inside my shirt. I was working
outside, watering a few things, pulling a few weeds, and so on —
didn’t brush up against anything — made it rain on the
strawberries — thought heaven-scented waterfall thoughts — wet,
shaded stones from the river nearby — long dashes, eyelashes, a
woodnymph’s cry — undid my shirt in the house and out she tumbled
— I helped her outside, admiring how durable she was as she moved
off unfazed toward the big potted jade plant on our front step.
Traveler
I’m beginning to think
like this jade plant in the mist
a jeweled leaf for each
passing kingdom.
(The four-line poem “Traveler,”
from Songs and Letters, November 16, 2008)
Canvas 688
Canvas 688
May 7, 2016
The lines are made of
words, the words are children,
and being children,
they must run free.
Friday, May 6, 2016
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Wednesday, May 4, 2016
Monday, May 2, 2016
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