I have been watching White Christmas for 65 years so
tonight, the first film shot in VistaVision and Technicolor
rolls onto my tv screen; but the evening news, with far more
advanced tools, has begun to seep into my holiday films …
They survived the fin de siècle logging
That claimed the rouge et blanc
Leaving tepees of slash
On the Grayling sand.
And the farmers
Wielding fire to clear land…
because I told you
how the homeless woman
preferred over a stranger’s
offer of food, water, money
just a moment of conversation
to confirm that she exists
He takes to his branch each morning, lingers there
Finds his gentle, yet firm grip on the wood with his small claws
Steady, he welcomes the fresh air
The sun on his strong beak
The orange light peaking through the high buildings
He closes his eyes
Takes in the soft breeze on his black feathers
The laughter you hear, deep within the interior of the house,
Where the old couple from Italy, have lived for fifty years.
Or the glimpse of the treasured grandson across the road,
Laughing as his cousin chases him with the garden hose.
A sentinel for three seasons,
The fireweed stands unsteady
In the freshening breeze.
A phoenix of the scorched earth,
Its seeds break out in gossamer clouds,
Seeking newly ravaged lands to restore.
The days have merged into one
Like an endless musical number
The sequences of which
Play eternally without muse
I woke up
To a message from someone special
Whom I haven’t spoken to in God knows how long
Obediently, the baby
opens her mouth
to the spoon.
She has watched the adults
opening their mouths
around the table for so long,
Listen to the wind, its
strings and strains of
language and song
pulling you to your feet;
a ragdoll animated and living.
The possible face stares back at me
from across the weedy, ragged backyard,
its dark grey oval rising from the darker
striated bark of the sweetgum.
In the galaxies pooling in the waiting room
where black holes hum the prelude
to creation
we chart the shushed diagnosis
embossed in the orbit of
the body’s forgotten comets.
My mother’s white handkerchief
lies on my hand, the corners
embroidered with small flowers,
pink, blue, white. I unfold it
and find the yellow feather,
where I put it eighty years ago.
Marching men in uniforms, crisp
Navy-blue shoulders, starchy stiff
Polyester and pins
Bagpipes gasp and gather
The strength to carry the day
She disappears
takes with her
something created together
I move forward to where she stood
the absence of her presence
leaves behind a vacuum
Epicurus the Greek philosopher
tells me not to fear death.
He goes, Why should you fear death?
If you are, then death is not.
Once, in another time, I traveled with my parents
In the 1951 Ford sedan to a distant part of the city.
You could call it a city, but everyone then
Referred to it only as a town.
The hawk’s shadow follows me.
Some smoker’s tar coats my lungs,
all the tiny quivering sacs.
Like a cross stitch
I tied down your limbs
thread by thread
preventing you from flying
“No tree grows all the way to heaven,”
a darling end to a bible story
or Lenten play beginning
you might say;
a betrayal of trust
It’s really easy to forget
To put it all out of your mind
That you might be living with a debt which could be called in
Any time by that unforgiving debt collector
My Spectacles watched me seek for them
lowered their head with mine.
A clear silhouette of every
Twist
Turn
Bend
No idea where it came from,
The pipe-threading lathe
Just presented itself
On the job when it was needed.
From the truck and tools,
We rested the Mule near the alley
As near-death experiences go,
it was one of the best.
What more is there to tell?
We’re on our last legs, and the legs are last to go;
the best metaphors die young, reborn as cliches.