The Giant Book of Poetry (2006)
Page 49
we heard his sure voice urge us
Give it gas, give it gas. Over the roar
of the engine our hearts banged
like never before and banged on
furiously in the silence after
we bucked and stalled the truck.
How infinitely empty it then seemed—
windy flat rangeland of silver-green
gramma grass dotted with blooming cactus
and jagged outcrops of red rock, beginnings
of the Sangre de Cristos fifty miles off.
All Guadelupe County, New Mexico,
nothing to hit, and we could not
get the damn thing going. Nothing to hit
was no help. It was not the mechanics
of accelerator and clutch, muscle and bone,
but our sheer unruly spirits
that kept us small with the great desire
to move the world by us, earth and sky
and all the earth and sky contained.
And how hard it was when,
after our grandfather who was a god
said Let it out slow, slow time and again
until we did and were at long last rolling
over the earth, his happy little angels,
how hard it was to listen
not to our own thrilled inner voices
saying Go, go, but to his saying
the Good, good we loved but also
the Keep it in the ruts we hated to hear.
How hard to hold to it—
single red vein of a ranch road
running out straight across the mesa,
blood we were bound to follow—
when what we wanted with all our hearts
was to scatter everywhere, everywhere.
Brigit Pegeen Kelly (b. 1951)
The White Pilgrim: Old Christian Cemetery1
The cicadas were loud and what looked like a child’s bracelet was coiled at the base of the Pilgrim. It was a snake. Red and black. The cemetery is haunted. Perhaps by the Pilgrim. Perhaps by another. We were looking for names for the baby. My daughter liked Achsa and Luke and John Jacob. She was dragging her rope through the grass. It was hot. The insect racket was loud and there was that snake. It made me nervous. I almost picked it up because it was so pretty. Just like a bracelet. And I thought, oh the child will be a girl, but it was not. This was around the time of the dream. Dreams come from somewhere. There is this argument about nowhere, but it is not true. I dreamed that some boys knocked down all the stones in the cemetery, and then it happened. It was six months later In early December. Dead cold. Just before dawn. We live a long way off so I slept right through it. But I read about it the next day in the Johnsburg paper. There is this argument about the dead, but that is not right either. The dead keep working. If you listen you can hear them. It was hot when we walked in the cemetery. And my daughter told me the story of the White Pilgrim. She likes the story. Yes, it is a good one. A man left his home in Ohio and came East, dreaming he could be the dreamed-of rider in St. John’s Revelations. He was called The White Pilgrim because he dressed all in white like a rodeo cowboy and rode a white horse. He preached that the end was coming soon. And it was. He died a month later of the fever. The ground here is unhealthy. And the insects grind on and on. Now the pilgrim is a legend. I know your works, God said, and that is what I am afraid of. It was very hot that summer. The birds were too quiet. God’s eyes are like a flame of fire, St. John said, and the armies of heaven … but these I cannot imagine. Many dreams come true. But mostly it isn’t the good ones. That night in December The boys were bored. They were pained to the teeth with boredom. You can hardly blame them. They had been out all night breaking trashcans And mailboxes with their baseball bats. They hang from their pickups by the knees and pound the boxes as they drive by. The ground here is unhealthy, but that is not it. Their satisfaction just ends too quickly. They need something better to break. They need something holy. But there is not much left, so that night they went to the cemetery. It was cold, but they were drunk and perhaps they did not feel it. The cemetery is close to town, but no one heard them. The boys are part of a larger destruction, but this is beyond what they can imagine. War in heaven and the damage is ours. The birds come to feed on what is left. You can see them always around Old Christian. As if the bodies of the dead were lying out exposed. But of course they are not. St. John the Evangelist dreamed of birds and of the White Rider. That is the one the Ohio preacher wanted to be. He dressed all in white leather and rode a white horse. His own life in the midwest was not enough, And who can blame him? My daughter thinks that all cemeteries have a White Pilgrim. She said that her teacher told her this. I said this makes no sense but she would not listen. There was a pack of dogs loose in my dream Or it could have been dark angels. They were taking the names off the stones. St. John said an angel will be the one who invites the birds to God’s Last Supper, when he eats the flesh of all the kings and princes. Perhaps God is a bird. Sometimes I think this. The thought is as good as another. The boys shouldered over the big stones first, save for the Pilgrim. And then worked their way down to the child-sized markers. These they punted like footballs. The cemetery is close to town but no one heard them. They left the Pilgrim for last because he is a legend, although only local. My daughter thinks that all cemeteries have a White Pilgrim, ghost and stone, and that the stone is always placed dead in the center of the cemetery ground. In Old Christian this is true. The Ohio Pilgrim was a rich man and before he died he sunk his wealth into the marble obelisk called by his name. We saw the snake curled around it. Pretty as a bracelet. But the child was not a girl. The boys left the Pilgrim till last, and then took it down, too. The Preacher had a dream but it was not of a larger order so it led to little. Just a stone broken like a tooth, and a ghost story for children. God says the damage will be restored. Among other things. At least they repaired Old Christian. The Historical Society raised a collection and the town’s big men came out to hoist the stones. The boys got probation, but they won’t keep it. I don’t go to the cemetery anymore. But once I drove past and my babysitter’s family was out working. Her father and mother were cutting back the rose of Sharon, and my red-haired sitter, who is plain and good-hearted, was pushing a lawn mower. Her beautiful younger sister sat on the grass beside the Pilgrim pretending to clip some weeds. She never works. She has asthma and everybody loves her. I imagined that the stones must have fine seams where they had been broken. But otherwise everything looked the same. Maybe better … The summer we walked in the cemetery it was hot. We were looking for names for the baby and my daughter told me the story of the White Pilgrim. This was before the stones fell and before the worked-for restoration. I know your works, says God, and talks of the armies of heaven. They are not very friendly. Some dreams hold and I am afraid that this may be one of them. The White Rider may come with his secret name inscribed on his thigh, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and the child is large now … But who will be left standing?
Timothy Russell (b. 1951)
In Simili Materia1
When she stopped on the sidewalk,
near the yellow storm drain,
near gnats swarming above the hedge,
the little girl, perhaps three,
yelled something unintelligible
at the doll in the pink carriage.
When she slapped her baby
I remembered flocks of pigeons
erupting from beams and ledges
at the Sinter Plant,
how they would flutter and circle,
flickering in the sun, and always
return to their niches to roost.
Nuala Ni Dhomhnaill (b. 1952)
Ceist na Teangan (The Language Issue)1
Translated from the Irish by Paul Muldoon
I place my hope on the water
in this little boat
of the language, the way a body might put
an infant
in a basket of
intertwined
iris leaves,
its underside proofed
with bitumen and pitch,
then set the whole thing down amidst
the sedge
and bulrushes by the edge
of a river
only to have it borne hither and thither,
not knowing where it might end up;
in the lap, perhaps,
of some Pharaoh’s daughter.
Sean O’Brien (b. 1952)
Rain2
At ten pm it starts. We can hear from the bar
as if somebody humorless fills in the dots,
all the dots on the window, the gaps in between.
It is raining. It rained and has always been raining.
If there were conditionals they too would be rain.
The future tense is partly underwater. We must leave.
There’s a road where the bus stop is too far away
in the dark between streetlights. The shelter’s stove-in
and a swill of old tickets awaits us.
Transitional, that’s what we’re saying,
but we’re metaphysical animals:
we know a watery grave when we see it
and how the bald facts of brute nature
are always entailed by mere human opinion,
so this is a metaphor. Someone’s to blame
if your coat is dissolving, if rain is all round us
and feels like the threats-cum-advice of your family
who know I am up and have come and will go to
no good.
They cannot be tempted to alter their views
in the light of that sizzling bulb. There it goes.
Here we are: a black street without taxis or buses.
An ankle-high wave is advancing
to ruin your shoes and my temper. My darling,
I know you believe for the moment the rain is my doing.
Tonight we will lie in the dark with damp hair.
I too am looking for someone to blame. O send me
a metro inspector, a stony-faced barmaid.
The library is flooding and we have not read it,
the cellar is flooding and we shall be thirsty,
Trevor McDonald has drowned as the studio shorts
and the weather-girl goes floating past
like Esther Williams with her clothes on,
mouthing the obvious: raining.
Shu Ting (b. 1952)
Assembly Line1
Translated from the Chinese by Carolyn Kizer
In time’s assembly line
night presses against night.
We come off the factory night-shift
in line as we march towards home.
Over our heads in a row
the assembly line of stars
stretches across the sky.
Beside us, little trees
stand numb in assembly lines.
The stars must be exhausted
after thousands of years
of journeys which never change.
The little trees are all sick,
choked on smog and monotony,
stripped of their color and shape.
It’s not hard to feel for them;
we share the same tempo and rhythm.
Yes, I’m numb to my own existence
as if, like the trees and stars
—perhaps just out of habit
—perhaps just out of sorrow,
I’m unable to show concern
for my own manufactured fate.
Mark Irwin (b. 1953)
Woolworth’s1
Everything stands wondrously multicolored
and at attention in the always Christmas air.
What scent lingers unrecognizably
between that of popcorn, grilled cheese sandwiches,
malted milkballs, and parakeets? Maybe you came here
in winter to buy your daughter a hamster
and were detained by the bin
of Multicolored Thongs, four pair
for a dollar. Maybe you came here to buy
some envelopes, the light blue par avion ones
with airplanes, but caught yourself, lost,
daydreaming, saying it’s too late over the glassy
diorama of cakes and pies. Maybe you came here
to buy a lampshade, the fake crimped
kind, and suddenly you remember
your grandmother, dead
twenty years, floating through the old
house like a curtain. Maybe you’re retired,
on Social Security, and came here for the Roast
Turkey Dinner, or the Liver and Onions,
or just to stare into a black circle
of coffee and to get warm. Or maybe
the big church down the street is closed
now during the day, and you’re homeless and poor,
or you’re rich, or it doesn’t matter what you are
with a little loose change jangling in your pocket,
begging to be spent, because you wandered in
and somewhere between the bin of animal crackers
and the little zoo in the back of the store
you lost something, and because you came here
not to forget, but to remember to live.
Richard Jones (b. 1953)
Certain People1
My father lives by the ocean
and drinks his morning coffee
in the full sun on his deck,
talking to anyone
who walks by on the beach.
And in the afternoons he works
part-time at the golf course—
sailing the fairways like a sea captain
in a white golf cart.
My father must talk
to a hundred people a day,
yet we haven’t spoken in weeks.
As I get older, we hardly speak at all.
It’s as if he were a stranger
and we had never met.
I wonder, if I
were a tourist on the beach
or a golfer lost in the woods
and met him now for the very first time,
what we’d say to each other,
how his hand would feel in mine
as we introduced ourselves,
and if, as is the case
with certain people, I’d feel
when I looked him in the eye,
I’d known him all my life.
Leaving Town after the Funeral1
After the people and the flowers
have gone, and before the stone
has been removed from your mother’s house
and carved into a cross, I come back
on my way out of town
to visit your grave. And nothing
is there—only the ground,
roughed up a little, waiting for rain.
I sit down beside you
in my dark glasses
and put my hand on the earth
above your dead heart.
Two workmen are mowing grass
around the graves beside us.
They pretend not to see
I am crying. Quietly,
they walk over to their truck
to give me time.
They day is hot. They hold paper cups
under the water cooler on the flatbed
and drink together.
They are used to this.
The heat. The grief.
After a few minutes the younger one
walks back to work.
He gets down on his knees
and blows cut grass off a stone.
I believe he wants me to know
he will take care of you.
But hard as it is,
I know the truth:
when you drowned, your body
sank into the river forever.
Ten minutes to eight.
Darkness came down quickly.
for a long, long time.
The workman gets up and goes on
with his work. I get up
and walk back to the car.
Andrew, we know the truth:
the cold child in the casket
is not the one I loved.
The Bell1
In the tower the bell
is alone, like a man
in his room,
thinking and thinking.
The bell is made of iron.
It takes the weight
of a man
to make the bell move.
Far below, the bell feels
hands on a rope.
It considers this.
It turns its head.
Miles away,
a man in his room
hears the clear sound,
and lifts his head to listen.
Wan Chu’s Wife in Bed1
Wan Chu, my adoring husband,
has returned from another trip
selling trinkets in the provinces.
He pulls off his lavender shirt
as I lie naked in our bed,
waiting for him. He tells me
I am the only woman he’ll ever love.
He may wander from one side of China
to the other, but his heart
will always stay with me.
His face glows in the lamplight
with the sincerity of a boy
when I lower the satin sheet
to let him see my breasts.
Outside, it begins to rain
on the cherry trees
he planted with our son,
and when he enters me with a sigh,
the storm begins in earnest,
shaking our little house.
Afterwards, I stroke his back
until he falls asleep.
I’d love to stay awake all night
listening to the rain,
but I should sleep, too.
Tomorrow Wan Chu will be
a hundred miles away
and I will be awake all night
in the arms of Wang Chen,
the tailor from Ming Pao,
the tiny village down the river.
Robert Kinsley (b. 1953)
A Walk Along the Old Tracks1
When I was young they had already been