FREEDOM

What will I say to you today?
What can be said?

There is always a task
to bend to, always unfinished work
to be done. The days are growing shorter
and the summer is almost gone,
and with the early-coming night there is
a sense of urgency, a desperation to remove
this mask fastened to our face.

What will I say to you today?
What can be said?
Perhaps there will just be
a warm glance, and maybe then
it will feel like morning again.

(19 September 2006)

GOING DOWNSTAIRS

Some thoughts come about wishfully,
and these I hope to let go of.
The mystery of the card in the mail
is handlable. Its reality is suspended,
whether it’s a joke, or a mistake,
or an actual gift.

There are certain days of the year
that should feel important; it seems like
a fitting commemoration or ceremony
is needed. Then you realize
that the resignation set in long ago.

And if I let the dust
settle all around me,
we might make some progress.

(12 September 2006)

AS IT WAS LONG AGO

Going up my stairs
late at night, the sounds of the day
have finally faded and silenced.
It is just as it was long ago—there weren’t
really any absolutions, but there was the feeling
that everything would
be all right. And then
on the radio fades in: “For now: goodbye,
friend. Goodbye…”
Sometimes I would take
the long way home.

(8 September 2006)

WHERE HEAVEN ENDS AND THE EARTH BEGINS

It’s out there in the distance—
beyond the floodlight, past the cypress
and the flamboyante. Out there, where
there is still a slight glow on the
horizon, where the earth bends
and the sky and the air bend with it.
And I am standing at that point,
here on the colonnade.

(6 September 2006)

TURNING WATER INTO WINE

Woke up morning after morning
thinking all closed doors would soon be
open. There would be magic and thinking big,
bringing something new to the table, a world
waiting for me to change it. I could step out
and see the city lights. (It was a relief
when they didn’t open.)

Once in a while, though, one does open,
or lets in a little shaft of light through
the bottom, just to tempt me. But when
that happens, I’m never where I want to be,
so I don’t go near them. But it makes you wonder:
who’s writing the future?

(29 August 2006)

APPROACH

War is hard.
Post-war is
harder.

(25 August 2006)

WEST OF HERE

This is where I grew up. These are the schools
I went to, these are the parks I played in
as a child; this is the grocery store, the post office,
city hall, and the shopping center with
everything you could ever want.
Some of it was here long before
my time, some of it grew up around us.

I’m showing you around. I hardly notice
any of it anymore, but you are
learning everything by repetition.
It won’t be home forever.

It will be good for you to become
a little familiar with this place and the way
of the people, and you will see
some of it in me. I hope you’re able to take it
on board with me standing here with you.

(16 August 2006)

VICTORY CELEBRATION

How will it be when the new day dawns—
when we triumph, once and for all, over
the forces of evil? How will we dance
around the open flames? How will the mask
that has covered our face for most of
our collective life burn? How will
the statues fall? How will the drums and bells
sound when we return home? How will it feel
when we embrace our brothers and sisters,
knowing that we will not be separated again
like we were centuries before in a small hamlet?
How will it be for our forefathers?
And what will come after that?

(15 August 2006)