by Carl Dennis
Not the ones who’d rather rest but those delighted
To abandon the gardens of Hell, however fragrant,
For a chance at crossing the sea again in a storm?
The day their ship, long given up for lost,
Steams into the harbor, all flags flying,
Would be a day to be toasted with rose champagne
In heirloom glasses. Down the gangway they come,
A little thinner, a little unsteady,
Eyes wide in wonder at their rare good fortune.
Can you see what they see as they look around
Or feel what their friends waiting on the dock
Must feel as they run forward?
“Let me look at you,” they keep saying,
Suspending their formal speech of welcome.
“You look good. You look wonderful.”
Seven Days
No problem making sense of the week
Once I convince myself that each day
Is meant to follow the one before
Or not to follow, whichever it chooses.
One day for me to be the rabbi upstairs
Mapping the twelve degrees of righteousness.
One day to put the first degree into practice,
Figuring how to allow the gleaners
To gather sheaves in my field after the harvest
When I have no field, just a yard in town.
And then a sunny day for making my yard
A kingdom of flowers to delight the eye.
And a rainy day for sketching the yellow flower
Adorning the hair of the goddess Luna
As she rows her boat through a black sky.
And then a day to be sad this image of fulfillment
Would be just as strange to the rabbi
As his love of commandments would be to her,
However many letters I carried between them.
And a day to be happy I can talk to one
And then the other, and agree with both,
Undaunted by contradiction and inconsistency.
And then one day of rest from wondering
If I’m to bless them as my own creation
Or if they’re to bless me as their restless child.
Sarit Narai
Now that the light holds on after supper,
Why not walk west to the end of Ferry Street
And linger where the ferries used to dock
Before the bridge spanned the Niagara.
Why not enlarge the thin verge of the moment
With the Sunday crowd on deck fifty years ago
Riding to Fort Erie and back just for the fun of it.
The wind from the lake ruffles their hair
As the low sun glances along the water.
Just as they left their rooms to join the flow
So you can go back to them for a moment
And lead them forward into the present
Where the gulls are gliding, swinging beneath the bridge
In figures that blur as you watch, and disappear.
And why not call up the boys you used to see here
Playing on the boulders in the bridge’s shadow
Before the fence was put up to stop them.
If one of them lost his footing, his chances were slim,
The push in the channel too hard and heavy,
The water of Erie beginning its headlong, brainless rush
To join the Ontario, as if an extra minute mattered.
Remember the evening you found a crowd here
Waiting beside an ambulance with its motor running
And a squad car where a woman sat in back
Head in her hands? Dark-haired. Next morning
Leafing through the local news, you found the story—
Woman from Thailand, three years in the States,
Loses her son, eleven, to the Niagara.
Let yourself go, if you want to enlarge the moment,
And imagine what might have happened if the boy,
Sarit Narai, had been fished from the river in time.
Try to think of him as your son’s best friend
At Niagara school, where friends were scarce,
Quieting a wildness you could never manage,
The mild manners of Asia persuasive by mere example.
And what if your daughter admires him even more
And comes to choose him for her life’s companion,
Not the drab complainer she ended up with.
The world turned left that day on the forking path
But the path on the right still runs beside it
Though never touching. A bountiful Buddha smile
As he explains to your granddaughters and grandsons
How to climb the eightfold path to freedom
As gulls like these swoop over the gray stones
And the ferries steam back and forth if you let them.
Freely the crowd on deck empties its mind of thought
And welcomes sensation, the sun and wind.
And then the riders waken to see the skyline of home
Beckoning from a distance as if it missed them,
So they’re ready to take up their lives again
As the ship pulls in where now a line of cars
Waits in the twilight to pay the bridge toll
Not thirty yards from the spot where the ambulance waited
And the woman cried in the back seat of the car.
After an hour the crowd moved off, dissolving to families,
To couples musing on twilight pastimes.
For a moment, though, each may have hesitated
To change the subject and appear small-souled,
The mist of sorrow already thinning and fading
That would have remained if they’d lived in Eden,
The one kingdom where the sorrows of others
Feel like our own. When Buddha neared Nirvana,
One story goes, he looked back on us as we drowned
In the sea of endless craving, and was filled with pity,
And chose to postpone his bliss till all were saved.
But how can a climb from the world be managed here
When the crowd on the ferry wants the sunset to linger,
And the mother would sell her soul to get her son back,
And the boy still struggles to grab the slippery rock
And pull himself up, his friends all helping
So he can grow old among them. An old man
Looking back on his deeds of kindness. Now the few
Who met him and the many who never did but might have
Feel the phantom gap he would have filled
But are ignorant of its cause and blame their wives,
Their husbands, their children, their towns and jobs,
And hunt around for new gospels, new philosophies.
If you see them this evening pacing along the bank
Where once the ferries docked and the Sunday riders
Lost themselves awhile in the sway and shimmer,
Pity their restlessness. There must be a way
To step forward and name the one they miss,
Sarit Narai, in a tone so resonant
It holds them a moment beyond loss and longing.
Aunt Celia, 1961
A life without remorse, that’s something
I’m willing to predict for a generous,
Brave young man like you. But as for happiness,
There you need luck, the kind I had
In meeting your Uncle Harry after I’d given up
Thinking I’d find a man to suit me.
The blind luck of visiting a cousin in Pittsburgh
In the spring of 1930, of going along
When she went to the lecture at the socialist club,
Of sitting at the back of the hall near the exit,
Of forgetting my scarf and having to run back,
Of stumbling over a chair and falling.
Who turned out cheerful and philosophical.
It isn’t gratitude that I felt then or feel now.
More a mixture of wonder, relief, and fear
When I imagine the girl I was back then
Making do with the luck most people have,
Missing the unknown rendezvous by inches,
The scarf not left behind, the meeting canceled,
The trip to Pittsburgh postponed a week
So she could be home for her mother’s birthday.
People will tell you there are many good lives
Waiting for everyone, each fine in its own way.
And maybe they’re right, but in my opinion
One is miles above the others.
Otherwise it wouldn’t have been so clear to me
When I found it. Otherwise those who lack it
Wouldn’t be able to tell so clearly it’s missing
As they go on living as best they can
Without complaining. Noble lives, and beautiful,
And happy as much as doing well can make them.
But as for the happiness that can’t be earned,
The kind it makes no sense for you to look for,
That’s something different.
All I’ve Wanted
Who’s to say that Mrs. Gottlieb, a woman of spirit,
Wasn’t right when she told our high-school class
People get what they really want,
Right in her case, at least, and in mine.
I might have learned Greek if I’d wanted to.
The dictionary and grammar book on my shelf
Were likely symbols of a wish not deep enough
To issue in practice. I might have gone to Bali
And witnessed the fire dance that my friend described
So vividly I bought a map of the island,
Brochures on accommodations, a silk shirt for the climate.
I probably thought I’d be happier here
Doing other things, some less taxing than travel,
Some more. Could be I didn’t want my second choice
For heart’s companion deeply enough to make her stay.
Could be I wanted the seven years of regret that followed.
It’s likely I could have explored whatever it was
That blocked the flow of feeling from heart
To tongue if I’d made the effort,
Could have dug the silt from the living stream.
I must have had other projects in mind,
Other ideas for ranking the needs of my species
According to a personal formula I can’t call up now
But doubtless could if I wanted to.
I must want to keep that question open
Like the question whether I’m the laborer
Who reports for work in the vineyard at the crack of dawn
Or the one who straggles in at dusk with no excuses,
Hoping this is the place where the last are first.
I must enjoy not knowing if my walk this evening
Marked the end of a full day or a day of waiting.
I must be glad that the flock of plover
Arcing above the school in close formation
Looked set apart in their own blue world,
Not heading for any retreat we share.
Integer
Shall I give up on salvation
And suppose the unit of life isn’t the self,
As I’ve always assumed, but the twenty houses
That make up my block? Which house puts in the hours
Required each month by the block’s one conscience
Won’t be the issue then, as long as the slot gets filled.
A comfort then to wake before dawn
And glimpse through curtains the light
Already burning in my neighbor’s study,
Proof that the block’s quota of early writing
Is on its way to completion and I can sleep in
Or drive to the farmer’s market for groceries
Since shopping too is a category of useful action
And spaces are still blank on the sign-up sheet.
No need to be first, no need to enlarge
The margin of experience beyond what’s given.
A life without emulation, a death that’s calm
As I accept the end of my many projects
And my dream of heaven. The street
Will survive me. My dust will return to it,
And my soul, too, though smaller than I imagined,
No bigger than a katydid in a bush by a gate
As it helps a yard meet its quota of squeaking.
Distinctions
The world will be no different if the twin sisters
Disputing now in the linen aisle of Kaufmann’s
Resolve their difference about table napkins,
Whether the color chosen by one is violet
Or lavender or washed-out purple. No different,
But that’s no reason to deem the talk insignificant.
It’s important for people to make distinctions,
To want their words to fit appearances snugly.
Why wait to get home before they decide if the napkins
Match the plates Grandmother gave them years back
For their twentieth birthday? A pleasure to hear them,
Like the pleasure of hearing people in a museum
Discuss how closely the landscape approaches
Their notions of the best of the Renaissance
Or would if the paint hadn’t cracked in spots
And darkened. Should they deem it fine or very fine
Or remarkable? The world no different but the subject
Not insignificant, the whereabouts of the beautiful,
Just how near it lies to the moment
According to a measurement all can agree on.
That was a beautiful conversation last night
About Vermeer though my friend Ramona
Went off on a tangent, hammering home her theory
As to why he never painted his wife or children.
Could be she was feeling resentful she’s only third
On her husband’s selective roster of the women
Who’ve left the deepest marks on his character.
But this morning she may be asking herself what right
She has to complain when he’s second on hers,
Below the passionate man she walked away from,
Whose curtain lectures on the plight of Cambodia
Bored her silly. No joy for her, back then,
In loving a man whose conscience burdened itself
With the crimes of others, not simply his own.
Now it seems she lost out on a lucky chance
To widen her heart. However painful that thought,
It’s useful when she finds herself too satisfied
With the life she has, forgetting where it fits exactly
On the spectrum of ripeness. Meanwhile, out in her garden,
It’s a beautiful morning. The air is a little gritty,
Granted, and the clouds gathering in the west
Have lowered its ranking to seven points out of ten
On the scale of likely prospects. But that doesn’t mean
She can’t make it a ten on the scale of hope,
Ten for her willingness to be proven wrong.
Two or Three Wishes
Suppose Oedipus never discovers his ignorance
And remains king to the end,
Proud as he walks the streets of Thebes
To think of himself as his city’s savior,
The fortunate husband of Queen Jocasta,
The blessed father of two dutiful daughters.
Would we call him happy, a man so unknowing?
If we did, we’d have to admit that happiness
Isn’t all we ask for. We want some tru
th as well,
Whatever that means. We want our notions,
However beautiful and coherent,
Linked to something beyond themselves.
First I want to dream I’m in your thoughts.
Then I want that dream to be a picture
Faithful in flesh and spirit to what is the case.
First I imagine your heart as a city like Thebes
With me as the park you prefer to visit.
Then with my own eyes I want to see you
Resting again and again on one of the benches,
Gathering strength for the messenger
Who may be nearing the outskirts now
Wondering if you’ll know how to take the news.
Grace
The thought of the woman you couldn’t make happy
Made happy by someone else
Will have to trouble you less than it does now
If you want to disprove the doctrine of the Fall
And enter the world of grace abounding.
On the day you cross the border, you’ll be free.
The town she left won’t seem so tiny,
The streets so empty and predictable.
Linger too long with your book at dinner
And you’ll miss the walk to the river at dusk
When the rare, shy creatures make their appearance.
Then if you walk away from the town’s glare
To watch for a few of the brightest stars,
You won’t be doing it to impress her,
To prove you can be intimate with the beautiful
Without a craving for ownership.
You’ll be enjoying the stars for their own bright sakes.
There they’ll be—Vega, Spica, Aldebaran—
High above the sagging roof of a barn.
On the walk back, you’ll linger at the outskirts,
Pausing at an open window to listen.
With the radio waves free of the daytime clutter
Talk shows from Phoenix and Memphis will be coming in clear.
Now they seem a mixture of rancor and confusion.
Then they’ll sound like half-truths waiting to be fused
By a power within you not yet discovered.
It will be easy then to love the truth
Just for itself, to be content with its cool,
Impersonal light. No need to believe
That your contentment, if she learned of it,
Would give her the pleasure she’s always wanted.
You’ll want to believe she has pleasure enough