SADDAM IS DEAD TODAY, FORD DIED A FEW DAYS AGO

You probably shouldn’t be reading this today,
probably better to wait
about fifty years or so. Then with a little distance
between us and current events,
history will be able to remember these people.
Governments will rise and fall
with the dusk. It’s hard to know what will go on
in the night before the dawn.

It wouldn’t be fair
to write about you today,
because it will change tomorrow,
or in a year, or a decade, or a century.
The mental picture
will not tell the whole story.

It is amazing to look out on that field of snow
that has never been touched. We spend
so much time imagining a thousand footprints
there, like a thousand voices
telling us how much we have strayed.
And there we are left standing.

(30 December 2006)

CLARITY

I get looks from people. Smiles too.
Like they are saying, “Do you know
the good news?” But they never actually ask.
They smile at each other too. Like
they are saying, “He really doesn’t know,
but it would be nice if he did.”
Yes, it would be nice.

(26 December 2006)

SURFACE

The car rides up along the very edge
of the cliff. “I will go home and rest,”
I tell the driver. “For awhile,
anyway.” He unapologetically
tells me there is no time
for rest. “The adversity
will only get worse. War
is coming.”

At home, there is a bomb
in the living room.
All the clocks in the house
give a different detonation time, but we all
race outside to safety. Be careful
not to cut your feet
on the shattered glass.

(21 December 2006)

IT WAS PROBABLY THE LAUGHTER LAST NIGHT

I have half-heartedly
placed the seedling
in the soil. Now there is only
to wait and see what benefits
will come of it. And
they’re all benefits.

The darkness, like snowflakes, carefully
descends all around us. It is
sometimes easier noticed.

At the bottom of the hill, bats circle
in a figure-eight motion.
Perhaps it is their own
form of unconscious worship.

(21 December 2006)

PLAINS

It’s quiet this morning, like life has started
but no one’s aware of anything yet.
There is an ocean of time
we can’t see at first, when our eyes
are new to the world. Some would say
we can never really see it, but we
get better at sensing it
as we get older, if we work hard.
I still know virtually nothing
after this much time, though.

It’s quiet mornings like this
that make it easier to remember
the entire life that is behind
everything.

And seeing
old acquaintances—people I once knew—
begs the question:
what is there to be afraid of?

(20 December 2006)

QUESTION

Others maybe dismissed it—your eyes,
your sleep, your every response
to everyone. It looked like anger,
and it was, until maybe
you turned the corner or went into
the empty living room. How many times
was it really you crying,
outside or inside?

(14 December 2006)

LIGHT OF DAY

You could be the one
at my door. You could,
you know. But how long
until God says, “Okay, I’ve done
everything I will do.”

(14 December 2006)

AWAKE

The dust particles in the air
bend in the light. Maybe the doors
and the ceiling do, too. But how
hard do you have to listen?

Guidance constantly falls
like rain, you’re bound to catch in your hand
a drop that will carry you
along your way. Everything will be
fine. But what if, on the
other side of the glass, you see
all the drops
you could have caught?

(14 December 2006)

ABSOLUTELY

I looked up the inside of a lampshade
and realized I don’t want to go this way.
Maybe we could walk together, on a street
in, say, Venice. Maybe we could
carry on a conversation. I really don’t know.

You still sometimes
come to me in my dreams. And
I am amazed
at how much brighter they are
when you’re in them, and how
much warmer it is
whenever you’re around.

But I still find no certainties.

And so I ask myself: Will I be able
to look back on old memories and say,
“I’m glad I didn’t know”?

(12 December 2006)

BEAUTY

Part of me hopes, but it doesn’t pray.
Because what if I’m wrong? I suppose,
then, the stairway will always be broken.
Your sad eyes are not necessarily
directed at me. At least
I’m probably not to blame.

(7 December 2006)

AND I CAN’T REMEMBER THE WORDS

Each smile is
a little
confirmation, like God
is saying, “Yes, this is what
I want for you.”
That’s what you think, anyway.

Some days the rain beats upon your
head, some days it flows through you.
Silence can be another word
for disbelief, and your voice
can cry out
again and again
to the night. You can pretend
some things around you don’t exist,
and they still do.

And every day there is
another smile. Sometimes two.

(7 December 2006)