zephyrean

Someone says Tristan

& Isolde, the shared cup

& broken vows binding them,

& someone else says Romeo

& Juliet, a lyre & Jew’s harp

sighing a forbidden oath,

but I say a midnight horn

& a voice with a moody angel

inside, the two married rib

to rib, note for note. Of course,

I am thinking of those Tuesdays

or Thursdays at Billy Berg’s

in LA when Lana Turner would say,

“Please sing ‘Strange Fruit’

for me,” & then her dancing

nightlong with Mel Torme,

as if she knew what it took

to make brass & flesh say yes

beneath the clandestine stars

& a spinning that is so fast

we can’t feel the planet moving.

Is this why some of us fall

in & out of love? Did Lady Day

& Prez ever hold each other

& plead to those notorious gods?

I don’t know. But I do know

even if a horn & voice plumb

the unknown, what remains unsaid

coalesces around an old blues

& begs with a hawk’s yellow eyes.

-Yusef Komunyakaa

Then came the darker sooner,

came the later lower.

We were no longer a sweeter-here

happily-ever-after. We were after ever.

We were farther and further.

More was the word we used for harder.

Lost was our standard-bearer.

Our gods were fallen faster,

and fallen larger.

The day was duller, duller

was disaster. Our charge was error.

Instead of leader we had louder,

instead of lover, never. And over this river

broke the winter’s black weather.

-Catherine Wing

1. Welcome to the silly, comforting poem. It is not the sunrise, which is a red rinse, which is flaring all over the eastern sky; it is not the rain falling out of the purse of God; it is not the blue helmet of the sky afterward, or the trees, or the beetle burrowing into the earth; it is not the mockingbird who, in his own cadence, will go on sizzling and clapping from the branches of the catalpa that are thick with blossoms, that are billowing and shining, that are shaking in the wind. 2. You still recall, sometimes, the old barn on your great-grandfather's farm, a place you visited once, and went into, all alone, while the grownups sat and talked in the house. It was empty, or almost. Wisps of hay covered the floor, and some wasps sang at the windows, and maybe there was a strange fluttering bird high above, disturbed, hoo-ing a little and staring down from a messy ledge with wild, binocular eyes. Mostly, though, it smelled of milk, and the patience of animals; the give-offs of the body were still in the air, a vague ammonia, not unpleasant. Mostly, though, it was restful and secret, the roof high up and arched, the boards unpainted and plain. You could have stayed there forever, a small child in a corner, on the last raft of hay, dazzled by so much space that seemed empty, but wasn't. Then--you still remember--you felt the rap of hunger--it was noon--and you turned from that twilight dream and hurried back to the house, where the table was set, where an uncle patted you on the shoulder for welcome, and there was your place at the table. 3. Nothing lasts. There is a graveyard where everything I am talking about is, now. I stood there once, on the green grass, scattering flowers. 4. Nothing is so delicate or so finely hinged as the wings of the green moth against the lantern against its heat against the beak of the crow in the early morning. Yet the moth has trim, and feistiness, and not a drop of self-pity. Not in this world. 5. My mother was the blue wisteria, my mother was the mossy stream out behind the house, my mother, alas, alas, did not always love her life, heavier than iron it was as she carried it in her arms, from room to room, oh, unforgettable! I bury her in a box in the earth and turn away. My father was a demon of frustrated dreams, was a breaker of trust, was a poor, thin boy with bad luck. He followed God, there being no one else he could talk to; he swaggered before God, there being no one else who would listen. Listen, this was his life. I bury it in the earth. I sweep the closets. I leave the house. 6. I mention them now, I will not mention them again. It is not lack of love nor lack of sorrow. But the iron thing they carried, I will not carry. I give them--one, two, three, four--the kiss of courtesy, of sweet thanks, of anger, of good luck in the deep earth. May they sleep well. May they soften. But I will not give them the kiss of complicity. I will not give them the responsibility for my life. 7. Did you know that the ant has a tongue with which to gather in all that it can of sweetness? Did you know that? 8. The poem is not the world. It isn't even the first page of the world. But the poem wants to flower, like a flower. It knows that much. It wants to open itself, like the door of a little temple, so that you might step inside and be cooled and refreshed, and less yourself than part of everything. 9. The voice of the child crying out of the mouth of the grown woman is a misery and a disappointment. The voice of the child howling out of the tall, bearded, muscular man is a misery, and a terror. 10. Therefore, tell me: what will engage you? What will open the dark fields of your mind, like a lover at first touching? 11. Anyway, there was no barn. No child in the barn. No uncle no table no kitchen. Only a long lovely field full of bobolinks. 12. When loneliness comes stalking, go into the fields, consider the orderliness of the world. Notice something you have never noticed before, like the tambourine sound of the snow-cricket whose pale green body is no longer than your thumb. Stare hard at the hummingbird, in the summer rain, shaking the water-sparks from its wings. Let grief be your sister, she will whether or no. Rise up from the stump of sorrow, and be green also, like the diligent leaves. A lifetime isn't long enough for the beauty of this world and the responsibilities of your life. Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away. Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance. In the glare of your mind, be modest. And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling. Live with the beetle, and the wind. This is the dark bread of the poem. This is the dark and nourishing bread of the poem.

Negligence of another’s feelings is worse than ignorance of their feelings.

Laguna Blues
Charles Wright

It’s Saturday afternoon at the edge of the world.
White pages lift in the wind and fall.
Dust threads, cut loose, float up and fall.
Something’s off-key in my mind.
Whatever it is, it bothers me all the time.

It’s hot, and the wind blows on what I have had to say.
I’m dancing a little dance.
The crows pick up a thermal that angles away from the sea.
I’m singing a little song.
Whatever it is, it bothers me all the time.

It’s Saturday afternoon and the crows glide down,
Black pages that lift and fall.
The castor beans and the pepper plant trundle their weary heads.
Something’s off-key and unkind.
Whatever it is, it bothers me all the time.