No poem intrudes — but the ponies breakfasting
and geese seem unconcerned — discovering
the sopped cardboard — and — since suspense
suits well enough — approaching
with just such rhythm to be certain — until
the details — roughly cut —
the coming green / the silos rusting how many
vented seasons — agree
there is no escaping lack / tuitions — and —
hearing the next train moan — slipping
out of Sebring at ten past — how the land leads
overland — while the last daughter
wakes to schoolbooks — from dreams of
Stock Queen Coronations — with
her court / escorts — and convertibles ahead
to take them anyplace they’re dreaming.
Day after day the choices ask despair or ask novenas —
and day after day he thinks — the executioners
awake — roll over in time with straw essentials
to be counted — seeding their sad
contaminants — while the young deer — noshing
at the feeder — shows his indifference
to garden plots — to knowledge / ignorance —
no longer what they promised — and
to the poetry of course — unhurried through
the lengths of its expression / through
phlox clusters ( he thinks ) — while these hawks
this afternoon — looping above
the flickering storm-tower — grateful among
plain details — seem to sense their place
in concentration — because it’s their story now —
the snap of a bike-chain say — or the limb
snapped tightly on the smoking chain and blade —
or this bowed lilt now — precluding
explanation — since it’s a time to dance / to skip
the lectures about timing — a deciding
time — when the Conrail hauls east — ends here
in remembering — enters the larger
storm / the equation or exercise — that will
exhaust itself and leave this sunset after all —
once the lightning’s stopped / and the hail’s
done its business — bringing him
out of doors again — and into the land around —
to stare down spectacle — to ride
with these birds the blasts straight up — through
redundancy or chaos — sharing
the joy become of it — that Friday could be
so good — and twenty-one years so good —
this feel of Ohio everywhere — absorbing
interest — so good he tells himself — as any
said thing is — seeing this late light — playing
on her wine vases / rock displays — his
daughter’s triumphing — begun ( he would say )
when love first struck him
as down payment — as entertainment once —
with points of its own to make — and
convertibles — turning on a time — and explorations
certainly — with lovesongs ahead — and
grosbeaks / orioles — home again from wintering —
hummingbirds ahead — scouting the feeder
hung for days in anticipation. Already he’s said
too much. There’s blow-down
to clear / stack / cut down to chiminea lengths
two snow-paled selves will share
as twilights lengthen over deck chairs — reprising
tunes and tongues / well-sought
and seasonal flirts — adventuring in tenses —
with one more storm behind —
one more parade — and one more child schooling.
How would you react if asked —
explain as scuff-marks or successes — the poetry —
if asked — and its insistent lavishing —
but no less actual — if asked — than these
ends of spring / these sounds of the day
spelled out — than these rooms two enter —
having rehearsed to entertain
then put together — assuming amours — beheld
in this grainy chiaroscuro — twenty-some
years beheld — repeating in color-whirls / in
another night’s replenished chiminea —
as if they had only now looked out — looked
into storm / storm’s aftermath — and found
this months-old deer emboldened — hungry
enough to camp some fifteen feet
beyond their backdoor — but bounding
as two step out — certain ( they think )
how large a months-old target is — how large
a place a deer might occupy as sentiment —
how terrible a click might seem
until he turns deep foliage.
JUST ABOUT ENOUGH
The freshly-paved Used Lot — announcing cruises
chrome / chamoised panels
and concessions — plays to the common-sense
and ways we’ve been transported–
through so many worlds toward / to so many worlds
still to be and to imagine — where
something like love evolves and yields instruments.
I’m walking that porch-rail still — painting
that third-story overhang — overseen by the twins’ mother —
fixed I suppose at that same screen-door
for forever — and I suppose amused — if fearful
to find a kid so used by his employer —
a grandfather no less / already camping on a bar-stool —
until the charmed scene snaps
/ the paint-brush slips the death-drop length of light
straight down to drive-pebbles — plunging
the way kids could — with one mis-step / miscalculation —
until the kid himself erupts —
with just about enough — a woman turns and shuts
and warms mid-morning coffee — counts
on her own sons’ jobs / careers — on colleges
I can only guess in half a century —
and amused I guess — or scandalized — seeing me
flash from arm-borne innocence
to ornery. So what will she say for poems — or think
of Ohio now — of worlds her sons
or rocket rangers must inhabit — for the cigarmakers
or stool-warmers — a child maybe
and grandfather or landlord — climbing Danzer’s
high-noon stools for centuries — think
of this cruise-in now — or make of dreams / of clouds
/ of light the dreams depend on — say
for the voice of God / the voice of God’s own prophet
redirected — abandoned to rails or eaves
or to tin toys or to porchboards — slipping the ways
Time did — through brush-inflected daylight —
as even this mother’s surmise / these chips of glass
recalled — among the drivestones
and the summers — these flying figures brightening —
as house creatures haunt — and — saints
be praised! — Rita and Jude be praised! — as
springtimes and summers haunt — and faces
a mother can never quite stop counting / painting
a mother trusts has not quite ended yet.