Enough

I am writing like a mad person, working on what seems to be building (inexorably) toward a collection of poems about life in small towns.

Right now I am struggling with one piece, and working on a description of the head cashier at the supermarket where I worked part-time through high school, who fascinated and yet repelled me simultaneously. Her name was Shirley, she held her own with the overbearing male managers, and she was fearless. She seized upon whatever power she could in those days, it seems. I realize now how strong she really was.

So that’s my project for today. It is tentatively titled “Wearing Red.” I shall post it once I wrestle it to the ground.

Michelangelo said the work of art awaited him beneath the slab of marble, merely for him to uncover it. In my own small way I understand that as I write these days. The poem I know is possible waits patiently at the other side across a murky divide and with luck and patience maybe I can reach it, reveal it.

Here is  one I wrote about a barbecue years ago in the small town where I lived.

Enough

A barbecue and swim after work had brought us together

around the campfire that summer evening,

An impromptu thing teenagers do best:

You bring the beer. I’ll bring the chips.

I watched her run up from the water laughing.

As I write this her name comes back to me: Yvonne.

Fresh from her swim she stood close to the fire

in her tiny yellow bikini

drying her waist-length sheet of onyx-colored hair with a towel.

She seemed so utterly assured of herself in the task at hand,

so composed for a young girl,

tossing her head languidly from side to side

then taking a large hounds tooth comb and slowly pulling it through

that glorious hair of hers.

She must have known we all followed her every move,

couldn’t help but know it by the silence

that had enveloped her ritual,

the flames casting an unreal glow on that hair,

that perfect form and face.

The men particularly stared in awe

at this goddess from Okinawa who’d ended up

in our backwater of all places,

in their midst.

I watched the men’s faces watching her,

knowing even at 16 I would never possess the audacity

that was Miss Yvonne Tsubone’s that night,

and for as long as it lasted,

that which comes from sheer and absolute physical beauty,

a calling card that says,

without words:

I am perfect just as I am:

what I am is

enough.

Retrospect

I always thought roses would have been nice,

great, mysterious boxes of them

delivered to my door,

but I am older now

and realize that roses are extravagant after all.

I’ve had my days

of sitting dreamy-eyed at lunches with the girls

while they recounted their latest escapades.

Now I know better: only half of me listens

while the other half studies the menu.

I’ve been known to envy couples on street corners

entwined in each other,

but I am past that

and instead

take stock in my independence.

I’ve fantasized about dancing to waltzes,

slow, whimsical ones with lots of sax,

being whirled around an empty ballroom,

but styles have changed

and disco is the rage again.

If all be told

I’ve even craved an eloquent invitation to dinner

complete with reservations and candles,

but I have lived without it

and now find pleasure in eating alone.

As you can see

in retrospect I have managed fine,

but from time to time I have also wished

that roses

weren’t quite so beautiful.

(Photo entitled “Blanca” by John Benigno.)

What Are They Waiting For?

What Are They Waiting For?

The little face stares out at me

from the faded poster

in the front window of the Tops Market,

partially obscured by

an ad for Downy,

and one for L’il Debbie’s Snack Cakes,

Buy one get one free.

Stephen. His name is Stephen.

Quick math tells me

he’s been missing three years.

Makes him nine now.

This would not quite

be his face anymore.

Time goes on.

The poster is faded, curled at the edges.

It needs replaced, updated.

Stephen looks straight ahead

and will tomorrow from the same place

with the same face.

Passive, calm,

he waits for us

to find him.

Flying Over West Texas at Christmas

I will occasionally share with you work of other poets that stop me in my tracks. This is one, by the sublimely talented Billy Collins.

Oh, little town far below
with a ruler line of a road running through you,
you anonymous cluster of houses and barns,
miniaturized by this altitude
in a land as parched as Bethlehem
might have been somewhere around the year zero—

a beautiful song should be written about you
which choirs could sing in their lofts
and carolers standing in a semicircle
could carol in front of houses topped with snow.

For surely some admirable person was born
within the waffle-iron grid of your streets,
who then went on to perform some small miracles,
placing a hand on the head of a child
or shaking a cigarette out of the pack for a stranger.

But maybe it is best not to compose a hymn
or chisel into tablets the code of his behavior
or convene a tribunal of men in robes to explain his words.

Let us not press the gold leaf of his name
onto a page of vellum or hang his image from a nail.
Better to fly over this little town with nothing
but the hope that someone visits his grave

once a year, pushing open the low iron gate
then making her way toward him
through the rows of the others
before bending to prop up some flowers before the stone.

Zhivago’s Return

When I saw the film Dr Zhivago

what stayed with me most was not

the winter palace sheathed in ice

nor the vicious stabbing of the innocent brother

in the exotic palace ballroom while revellers danced,

not even the two opposing armies,

the row upon row of impossibly young soldiers

grimly approaching one another,

their heavy boots pounding the frozen Moscow street

late in the night,

closer and closer

until face to face.

What stayed was this:

Zhivago’s return to Yuryatin

and his beloved Lara

after his escape from the army, his months-long trek across Russia.

How simple it was for him to retrieve the skeleton key

from the niche in the wall below and

climb the snowbound stair

to enter her rooms once again.

To find himself there,

astonishingly,

her tiny apartment fully intact

on that crisp sunny afternoon,

her soup simmering on the stove

while she was briefly away.

There is her bed as Zhivago remembered it,

the same linens atop,

the finely-stitched pillow of her grandmother,

her family photos lined up identically

above the fire grate,

warming him now as it ever did.

And the soup spoons

still in the same drawer.

Goodbyes mostly, these days

A friend

I would have given my life for

without hesitation

now rushes me off the phone.

Makes excuses

we both would have scoffed at

once.

I listen, acutely,

for the slightest note of recognition

in her voice,

something that will tell me

she still remembers

us.

I wait, in hope,

to hear her simple acknowledgment

of our connection,

once so fierce,

so true.

Instead

I hear her distance.

I hear it

in every word she doesn’t say.

– Photo courtesy of Leslie Cudmore.