"It' always the same zebra.
We get to see it from all the
angles," I said about life
some years ago, "the eight-
year old angle, the twenty-
six, the sixty-five."
Now I see the shape of it,
ways of behavior; the smell
of what's relevant, animal-
stripes from flank to mane-
But what can explain the em-
brace of the deceased as the
soul revolves to face the beast?
 5/14/07
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We are what we eat
not the things of words;
We're made of the meat
of the wings of birds. |
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Today I'll judge my books by their covers.
I'll watch a pot, count unhatched chicks
I'll fix the unbroken, hold secret gods divine
A thousand fine soldiers, resplendent in their jacket designs
Are lined in shelves in my aerie —
All the noble sentiments quilled
Cry for all the milk that's spilled
Let the unaware buyer be sold –
If the book cover glitters it's gold
I'll make a Top Forty polled for pretty veneers
How the book appears and how it feels to hold and be held
The whole night through . . .
Today I'll do exactly what you're not supposed to do.
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We have a three-foot diameter plastic globe
that sits on the floor of our bedroom. The
countries are colored, the ocean's aqua. These
days we keep it unlit for little Beau's safety's sake.
Through the east window comes the morning
sun. The bedroom is radiant with joy. The Brand-
enburg IV is medium-loud. Little Beau swooshes
before me, pushing the globe out the door - little
feet pumping strong, he rolls the world along the
tiles to the kitchen, it bangs into furniture, the
denting is global, I know I should take it away.
But Beau and the Globe are a 2-character play
to me. The things they do reverberate. See Beau
imitate his family of singers as he puts his mouth
into the opening of the north pole. His 1 yr-old
stretch gets him up and over and down and in, call-
ing his tenor note across the earth's interior. Echo and I.
Now a big welt across the English midlands,
a round depression at Odessa, and part of Poland's
chipped away. (I know I must save the world from Beau
but my discipline is undone by the lovely conceit.)
One night I find myself embracing my Kathryn and
allowing myself to be embraced and to be blissed
by the beauty of my life today. Our hearts swell
together. Out from our feet Beau rolls the globe
away.
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The windy thing about fathering
is the having to do "The Groucho"
When my son is released from his
playpen on to the New York sidewalk,
his little feet pump in sprint-time.
Winded, I run with him and the jumping blood.
I run with my head as near as can be to his.
I want the vibrational joy!
(right response is rest.)
My x and y axes are put to a test:
I must run to keep up
and do the long-strided
sweep of "The Groucho"
to get down.
2/17/08
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Tired of reading Macauley's England, I
followed the air at sundown. The older I
get, the more it's about the air. . . How
extremely divine, the Tahitian air, as I stare
at the darkening cove. I must share my ap-
preciation.
— Are you from here?
I grope in English to the Polynesian girl
cleaning my room, at the tub.
— No, not here - from Raiatea.
She answers guardedly. She seems twenty-
two.
— I know it.
I say and pronounce it back to her. Then I
act out how beautiful the air feels to me here.
Now she smiles bashfully dropping her head
into the bathtowels she holds at her bosom.
Where have I seen this feminine grace, this
supreme law of serene acceptance in a face?
In the paintings of Gauguin. The blues drew
Paul to the South Pacific, but this is what
held him the rest of his life.
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