Autumn Song
(for Mom and Siani)
the body disabled
is most times a cacophonous suite—
moans, a cry, a groan in fortissimos
mounting fading to and from abrupt
weakness
as misguided antibodies
rhythm forward, injure receptors
in muscles, sever ties with nerves,
scale-stepping back any hope for cure
but the music of this fall from
normalcy has its euphony too
this body autumnal,
slowing life to a drum-beat steadiness
of efforts to walk not run, to live
and not just be alive,
frees hours for contemplating
everyday minutiae that actually matter—
from the powers of sun
pulling at oceans,
nursing a still green grass that envelops
my soles, brushes my ankles with cool,
to winnowing of wind
through well-mannered heather,
through feathery accents of Purple
Fountain Grass mounding peach mums,
peaking kale,
through cotton-white hair …
just black yesterday—
and while the body’s bleats
and wails are in season,
their treble, no sooner than begun,
balance out in time to soft pianissimos
of child’s play and birdsong and of a day’s
fugue—that shorter/colder/cloudier in fall,
nonetheless, timbres contrapuntal weaves
of bolder/brighter reds, oranges, purples,
pinks of dusk and dawning skies
Wang’s Xiao Flute
(for Ola M. Dugan)
end of day at the bus stop
rain slows to drizzle splashing puddles
brisk winds blow thick black hair, skin
brushing skin clears strands from brown eyes
baby giggles, shifts under pink fleece quilt
mother’s nylon bubble jacket, hugging her
thighs, shuffles against father’s dapper
grey Cole Haan car coat
soon high heels and wing tips come
crowding the slushy pavement
a chorus of sighs combust as eyes strain
through will o’ the wisps for sight of a bus
but my eyes stray to where my ears
have long been dancing
fingers, aflutter along a holy bamboo stick
nudged between them and the O of her mouth
the O of careful embouchure control,
nimble out the evening’s pitch—home-made
opus of lifts, lows, and blending resonance
my denims whip around my legs
sneakers squish on asphalt as I cross towards
her O! of epiphany stretching straight up
to an ancestor’s eyes when I offer
to buy her cd—“for six dollar”—when we
talk about the origin of her music, fifty years
of training in a Southwest Philly garret,
when her thin voice purls confession,
“my English, from Zhouzhuang?”
our conversation ending in laughter, the bus
droning/snorting arrival, tiny curbside pools
sloshing under rubber soles that ratchet and
squeak up bus steps—drown out melodies
and arcs from Wang’s Xiao flute
but from the window I see her
head bobbing, the flute, her fingers, her
mouth—all one song, now in its turn,
swallowing silence into an end-blown
composition celebrating that day as often
as I push replay to recollect a best memory
a hymn meting out the strains of a shared
world’s much needed flux
London Pieta—July 7, 2005
Breaking News: Her son, twisted spinal path
in the darkness, eyes closed, body exposed,
piercings in his side; Lord, it’s so hot—
families heaped beneath London
streets. At Kings Cross,
he’s hers. Slivers of heavy glass like cat-o’-nine
tails splay across his bare knees, through one;
a hand, drawn far from her body, a desperate
reach from his. Crackles of fire
show him atop debris and ash, something
moves—someone cries, ‘is he breathing?’
Another, ‘the subway’s been bombed!’
She hears only the question—I can
read the horrors and hopes
tracking her silence. I’m a mother. While she
navigates hell, my little girl and I negotiate
paradise, wanting no end to sunny days
and light summer rains at dusk
on a Blue Ridge mountain,
an ocean beyond London streets, where we
ask if we need jackets for the growing
cool. And here we remain, watching
a news anchor account for children,
fathers, the mothers—flesh torn
with shrapnel, some on stretchers, on foot
emerging from a tunnel’s corded throat,
kissing its open mouth to resurrection,
also pain—that mother’s, mine—
in my child’s mouth,
asking what no child should: “Mom, do
bodies melt in heat from a blast?” We
pull close. Tears drop. But the shaft
of ancient soul shining from her
eyes dries my cheeks
with my daughter’s trust: “Let’s pray God
sends them rain, Mom.” Her largesse
brings that surpassing joy we often
fail to see for sorrow—I pray
clouds lower over London—
“Your child has light enough to rise above
the dark,” I whisper ‘cross mountains,
ocean to her wavering soul, “wait,
Mother. Wait on the rain.”