Kevin Cawley<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
NO RAILING<\/p>\n
We took a train from Michigan to Utah.
\nBroke down outside Chicago. Two hours late
\nwe crossed the eastern prairie as we ate
\nand put the plains behind us in the night.<\/p>\n
Woke up in Colorado. April snow.
\nIn Denver when the dining car derailed
\nwe sat for three more hours. People wailed.
\nThe train conductor clenched his teeth and smiled.<\/p>\n
Climbing through the mountain passes, beauty
\ncause for comment out the lounge-car window,
\nwe stood in line an hour for a muffin<\/p>\n
discussing implications of our route.
\nWe could have lost it in these cliffs of winter.
\nWe’ll make it through the canyons soon enough.<\/p>\n
14 April 1994<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PRIDE OF PLACE<\/p>\n
Compared to the clouds above them
\nthe mountains look quite small:
\nthe range of white above the range of white.
\nGrey echoes upward, echoes overhead,
\ncliffs of granite rockier than the rockies.<\/p>\n
Those who come to love them
\nconsider mountains tall,
\nbut even prairie dwellers know the sight
\nof eyries in the air: one thunderhead
\ncan make Pike’s Peak a thing too small for mocking.<\/p>\n
This canyon cut by water
\ndescendent of the cloud
\nmay give you an idea of permanence,
\nyet cloud itself, a parable of change,
\nreminds you that the world is all dissolving.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, daughter,
\ncrags that make you proud
\nmust do so thanks to some familiar sense
\nthat others feel for things that you find strange.
\nOur inner landscape proves the most involving.<\/p>\n
19 April 1994<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SAINT ABRAHAM<\/p>\n
Saint Abraham, the patriarch,
\nwhom Arabs call the Friend of God,
\nhas no place on our calendar:
\na man of piety so dark
\nhe wouldn’t even spoil the rod
\nto spare his son, his only heir.<\/p>\n
Image of God’s own sacrifice.
\nWith Isaac resurrected Father
\nAbraham grew mythical,
\nprogenitor of paradise
\nfrom whom in time would come our mother
\nMary willing to do God’s will.<\/p>\n
Christ Jesus in two parables
\nmade heaven itself equivalent
\nto rest with grandpa Abraham;
\nand slaves have sung in spirituals
\ntheir knowledge of what Jesus meant
\nto people thought not worth a damn.<\/p>\n
The bosom of Saint Abraham.<\/p>\n
11 March 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PARENTAL VENTRILOQUISM<\/p>\n
Cactuses and other succulents
\ncrowded the desert dome of the garden center.
\nInhaling the prickly heat of Arizona
\nwe circled house high western scenery,
\nwondered about the one that looked like aloe,
\nidentified the yucca plant and heard
\nour daughter, three years old, correct her brother:
\nDon’t touch, Baby. You could hurt yourself.
\nUnmistakably her mother’s voice,
\nthe weight of the words, the phrasing, intonation.
\nRecently I overheard myself
\nand for a moment thought I heard my father —
\na voice-mail message played back by mistake.
\nEnough however to remind me how
\nI hear my mother in my younger sister
\n(she hears it also, horrified). My wife
\nprefers to think she makes her own decisions.
\nShe sounds just like her grandma when she says so.
\nGenerations of ventriloquism.<\/p>\n
12 March 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
REFLECTION<\/p>\n
Whoever thought to put a shine on stone?
\nThis bench displays the animated clouds,
\nsomething stones in nature never do.
\nThe rock behind our cabin in Ohio<\/p>\n
furry with moss but otherwise a grey
\nno squirrel ever found its eyes inside
\nwould never take a shine by accident.
\nThe stones the motion of Lake Erie polished<\/p>\n
glow with a duller luster. When did marble
\ncome to imitate a looking glass?
\nWe have no way to answer such a question.<\/p>\n
History accounts for such inventions
\nonly with inventions of its own.
\nWhoever thought to put a shine on stone?<\/p>\n
9 June 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STRIKE FREE<\/p>\n
Working dogs look happiest to me:
\nthe collie on its own surrounding sheep
\na natural dance of predator and prey
\nlabor more delectable than play.<\/p>\n
Dogs of leisure always look depressed:
\nthe dachshund on the carpet at her best
\ndreams of badgers that her forebears dug
\nachieving nothing but a bunched-up rug.<\/p>\n
Though Candide had to cultivate his garden
\nPangloss with the leisure of a scholar
\nalways had the time to beg his pardon.<\/p>\n
We still have ingrates paid for playing ball.
\nChildren to bear and bury. Palms to harden.
\nWe still have leaves to rake from Adam’s fall.<\/p>\n
10 – 25 June 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
IN THE PINK<\/p>\n
The people who papered
\nthis room last time
\nhad chosen a mustard
\ncolored plaid<\/p>\n
mustard paint
\nmustard blinds.
\nWe thank them for
\nthe fun we had<\/p>\n
the afternoon
\nwe tore it down
\npapered and painted
\ndaughter pink<\/p>\n
border of antique
\nbaby dolls,
\nsolemn survivors
\nabout to wink.<\/p>\n
29 July 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
PRIVATION<\/p>\n
Sickness as a medicine for the soul?
\nPain primarily attracts attention:
\ntoothache takes me (finally) to the dentist
\nwho kills the pain — an incidental goal —<\/p>\n
healthy teeth the ultimate intent.
\nThe bad tooth gone, an inoffensive hole
\nremaining to remind me, I patrol
\nthe region with my tongue. And what it meant<\/p>\n
for this particular suffering to cure
\nmy soul of its reluctance to take care
\nI grudgingly acknowledge. Checkup? Sure.<\/p>\n
Twice a year I lean back in the chair,
\nopen my mouth for cleaning and endure.
\nNo aids, black plague, or terminal cancer there.<\/p>\n
29 July 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
TRIP TRAP<\/p>\n
1<\/p>\n
Ousted
\na mouse
\nfrom the malls
\nof my house,<\/p>\n
solemnly
\ncollared
\nthe wayward
\nscholar.<\/p>\n
Broke
\nhis neck:
\nhis bloodied
\nback,<\/p>\n
puddle
\nof red
\nthe drop
\nhe bled.<\/p>\n
2<\/p>\n
Another mouse
\nanother trap:
\nupstairs in bed
\nwe heard it snap.<\/p>\n
Fur a lighter
\nshade of grey.
\nNo blood this time.
\nThrew it away.<\/p>\n
3<\/p>\n
My daughter saw it in
\nthe middle of the night:
\na movement in the bathroom
\nat her feet. In fright<\/p>\n
she called me and I answered
\n(not quite waking) “What?”
\n“The mouse!” she answered. Not
\nanother one! I thought.<\/p>\n
9 September – 15 October 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
LOBSTER SUBSERVIENT<\/p>\n
To comfort a lobster
\none has to get wet:
\nshe does not in fact
\nmake a very good pet.<\/p>\n
Won’t come when you call her,
\nwon’t beg or play dead,
\nwon’t purr when you pet her
\nor mew to get fed.<\/p>\n
You want an admirer,
\nwant to play god —
\na creature to worship you,
\ngive you the nod.<\/p>\n
Lobster won’t go for it.
\nLacking a head,
\nbest she can manage:
\nget boiled, turn red.<\/p>\n
September – October 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WHO AM EYE<\/p>\n
Trouble, the one with no potential,
\nnever amounts to anything.
\nNever in time. Untimely, true,
\nyet Trouble has plenty of time for you.<\/p>\n
Trouble, mostly confidential,
\ntrouble, a river of many springs.
\nYou had it made. Not Him. No crime.
\nStill on the make. Has never done time.<\/p>\n
October – November 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
THE DARK AT TWO THE MOON AT FOUR<\/p>\n
“Dark,” my son says when the car door closes.
\nAt two, laconic, a philosopher,
\nhe contemplates it. “Where Dark go?” he wonders
\nwhen I turn the light back on. But I
\nhave jobs on my agenda. “You OK?”
\n“Dark!” he answers as I cut the light.
\nNothing more. I back into the night.<\/p>\n
My daughter tells me that the moon must have
\na string that we can’t see — connecting it.
\n“Connecting it to what?” Sincerely dense
\nI can’t quite drive and listen. Or applaud.
\n“Me,” she answers. “Daddy? Who made God?”<\/p>\n
6 November 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
NOVEMBER WORK<\/p>\n
Sweeping leaves down to the gutter,
\nI wonder what to let alone.
\nYou know me: I rake, I mutter —
\nheave an intermittent moan,
\nlong monolog of bruise on bone.<\/p>\n
Leave some in the flower garden?
\nI purchase compost every spring.
\nSodden with rain. Now they harden.
\nSnow falls. Ice forms. Me, I sing.
\nTomorrow I’ll ache like anything.<\/p>\n
18 – 19 November 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
DOLDRUMS<\/p>\n
Christmas behind us, New Year dead ahead,
\nsnow five inches thick, the car on empty,
\nvaporizer steaming up our bedroom,
\ndog no longer gnawing on her lamb-bone,<\/p>\n
we act out intermission, tune our heads
\nlike pocket radios among the dumpsters
\nin an alley where some dozen of us fled
\nto smoke with no word of the cancer gamble.<\/p>\n
We really ought to buy some Christmas cards.
\nWe’ve finished coping with our New Year Message.
\nWe have a book of stamps to get us started.<\/p>\n
Fits of coughing interrupt our kisses.
\n(We’ve never smoked, of course. A metaphor.)
\nGod with us: more than equal, even to this.<\/p>\n
27 December 1995<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
LIGHT BULB INCUBATOR<\/p>\n
Because I suffer from insomnia
\nI have an opportunity to write
\nthis letter in the middle of the night.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately the formula
\neludes me. I adjust the light.
\nEmpty paper: eggshell white<\/p>\n
the package says. No crack,
\nno beak in sight.
\nI readjust the light.<\/p>\n
To hatch a chick
\nyou incubate.
\nYou light and wait.<\/p>\n
A peck
\ncannot
\nbe caught.<\/p>\n
Dead certainty can’t lure a living thought.<\/p>\n
30 January 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
BEARDED<\/p>\n
Keeping my beard at bay
\nscissors in hand I pause.
\nPile on newsprint, straws
\nbound for the fire. Today
\nclipping an age of play
\nI question my final cause.<\/p>\n
Keeping my beard at bay
\nscissors in hand I pause.
\nWhat have I cut away?
\nNature? Or nature’s laws?
\nMy vegetable past? My flaws?
\nMy history, black and grey.<\/p>\n
Keeping my beard at bay
\nscissors in hand I pause.<\/p>\n
24 – 29 February 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
DISTINCTION<\/p>\n
When automatic machinery malfunctions
\nwe think of personality disorders
\npsychiatry for subway trains
\nanalysis for elevators
\npositive reinforcement
\nfor candy-bar dispensers.<\/p>\n
But when a human being goes berserk
\nwe make the cause mechanical
\ntalk in terms of engines
\ngoing haywire, screws loose,
\nlocomotives off the rails.
\nCuckoo clockwork.
\nIt does not compute.<\/p>\n
February – March 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
NO MAN’S LAND<\/p>\n
In a field between two fences
\nopen on one end
\nminions of three wildernesses
\neffortlessly blend.<\/p>\n
Neighbors by abandoning this
\nnarrow plank of ground
\nsaved it for the neighborhood of
\nloitering around.<\/p>\n
Waving shoals of vegetation,
\nweeds in other words,
\nclay no good for growing roses,
\ntuneless trashy birds.<\/p>\n
Animal and vegetable and
\nmineral combine:
\njanitor of no man’s landing
\nmine to watch, not mine —<\/p>\n
pacing up its dead-end alley
\nhands behind my back,
\ntracing recent thoughts and footsteps,
\nbeating down a track,<\/p>\n
suddenly I see the groundhog
\nwatching from its hole,
\nmuddy habitat behind it,
\nkitchen soil — the sole<\/p>\n
owner and proprietor of
\nall this in-between,
\nlonesome ranger of the local
\nsolitary green,<\/p>\n
challenging my right to walk here —
\nenemy or friend?
\nSalivating through its larder,
\nmenace without end.<\/p>\n
March & August 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
EARLY APRIL AND UP EARLY<\/p>\n
Lawn that needs a cleaning,
\ntrash behind the shed,
\ndawning spring: old meaning
\npassionate, once dead,
\nyawning open, preening,
\nflashing feathers, red.<\/p>\n
I am also dawning:
\nrisen from my couch
\nI try to close my yawning
\nchasm as I slouch
\nbehind the window spawning
\nwisdom of the grouch.<\/p>\n
Time’s forever trying
\nto make the spaces his —
\nriming seasons, frying
\nbacon, forcing fizz
\nto climb the fluid pyre
\nand break its messages.<\/p>\n
We who hear the riming
\ndon’t know what to make
\nof really perfect timing —
\nwon’t see what’s at stake
\ntill meaning gets all grimy
\nas burnt feet bid us wake.<\/p>\n
5 April 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
GESUNDHEIT<\/p>\n
When every scold became a scald
\nthe final bard grew bored
\nwith shapeless tales too often told
\nand all things scary scored.<\/p>\n
No word too weird
\nto bleat, no blot
\nso nuts as not
\nto pass for art.<\/p>\n
He killed some time. He caught a cold.
\nCarried a harp and struck a chord.
\nAn elder now, his songs all old.
\nThey leered. He sneezed. God bless you. Lord!<\/p>\n
1 – 4 August 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
WAKE ME WHEN MY KEEPER’S DREAMING<\/p>\n
I lay awake at three a.m.
\nplaying the latest ego tape,
\nwhat they think of when I come.
\nBut in spite of chill or swelter,
\ncycles of my central air,
\ntickles, truculence, or tackles
\nmet with in my mental lair,
\nsweet oblivion eludes me.<\/p>\n
So I put my slippers on,
\nclose the dog behind the door,
\nlight an oil lamp and wonder
\nwhat I might have left from supper.
\nSettling down with cocoa, cookies,
\nprattle softer in my head,
\nfinally as morning beckons
\nyawning I stretch. Go back to bed.<\/p>\n
Soon too soon my clock will wake me:
\nthen I’ll wish that I had slept,
\nstagger through my duties, taking
\nlonger than usual coffee breaks.
\nNevertheless I’ll keep on scheming
\nlovingly throughout the day:
\nme the object of my dreaming,
\nme the guest who’s come to stay.<\/p>\n
22 September 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
INTERMISSION<\/p>\n
Branches down from the trees again
\ncrossing the path from house to car:
\nI’ll gather them later.
\nLater the leaves in piles and then
\ngathered in bags will travel far
\npast natural fate.<\/p>\n
I’ll rake them up and put them out:
\nmechanical atrocities
\nwill take them in,
\ndigest them well and bring about
\na transformation other trees
\nmay carry on.<\/p>\n
For now, however, let me stand
\namong the fallen limbs and leaves
\nand smell the air.
\nSomebody burns them, though we’ve banned
\nthe practice: something in me grieves,
\nnot here nor there.<\/p>\n
September – November 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SOUND DEFECTS<\/p>\n
That pump near the aquarium
\ngoes sideways till it buzzes:
\nmove it back, it moves itself again.<\/p>\n
This button in the rocking chair
\nfrom which I listen has
\npopped out of the upholstery, and when<\/p>\n
I push it back where it belongs
\ntucking the string inside
\nI know that it won’t stay there anymore.<\/p>\n
Righting negligible wrongs
\nwe trim the current tide,
\neddies against an overwhelming bore.<\/p>\n
8 November 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STILL FALL<\/p>\n
November snow: unmitigated joy
\nto children unacquainted with a shovel.
\nThey struggle to fit their fingers in their gloves,
\ninfallibly pull their boots on the wrong way
\nleft on right foot right on left and say
\nCan we go out now? Never one to govern
\nwhen abdication seems a likely choice
\nI nod so as to save my shouting-voice.
\nI’ll need it later. Definitely love.
\nEcstatic transformation at first sight.
\nDid their mother ever feel that thrill?
\nComplaining heatedly (if heat could kill . . . )
\nshe blackens the reputation of the white.
\nLike anti-snow her smuts and cinders fall
\nblighting the gift she thinks of as a blight.<\/p>\n
10 November 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FACULTIES<\/p>\n
No new snow has fallen:
\nashes on the old
\ndarkening the cold
\ncling to it like pollen.<\/p>\n
Solemn faces, sullen,
\nwe do what we are told:
\nno new snow has fallen;
\nashes on the old.<\/p>\n
Never catch us kneeling:
\nfar outside the fold,
\nsheep with sheepskins, sold
\non sacrifice, unfeeling.<\/p>\n
No new snow has fallen.
\nAshes on the old.<\/p>\n
26 November 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STRAYS<\/p>\n
Accidental Rose of Sharons
\nbloom beside the fence;
\npachysandra unintended
\nwhere the flower bed has ended
\nalso flower there
\nmaking perfect sense.<\/p>\n
For perfection means completion:
\ncolor here completes
\nan otherwise unvaried scene
\na dull monopoly of green.
\nBlossoms for the needy,
\nan opulence of weeds.<\/p>\n
29 November 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
DARK TIDE TURNS<\/p>\n
When winter comes the days begin to lengthen.
\nAs cold increases so does light, as if
\nin compensation for the grief cold brings.<\/p>\n
With wet leaves underfoot the final whiff
\nof autumn smoke remains in memory
\nassociated with the milkweed chaff.<\/p>\n
And light increases as the leafless tree
\nno longer interferes. A weather forecast
\nclarifies connections: we can see<\/p>\n
the sun because a cold front lays it bare.
\nA warm spell would mean clouds again. But things
\nlook promising for those whom light can cheer.<\/p>\n
In branches where a single oak leaf clings
\na crow speaks. We can hardly say it sings.<\/p>\n
13 December 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FOR GETTING TECHNICAL<\/p>\n
Technically on Christmas Day
\nthe animals can’t talk:
\nmerely Saturnalia,
\na pagan festival that we
\nhave rehabilitated awkwardly.<\/p>\n
Technically on Christmas Day
\nthe Savior doesn’t come:
\nonly an anniversary
\non which one arbitrarily
\nmay call to mind the healer of the dumb.<\/p>\n
Technically on Christmas Day
\nno baby in the straw
\nmakes angels bloom with Gloria,
\nshepherds kneel or men from far
\naway bring presents and defy the law.<\/p>\n
Technically on Christmas Day
\nwe never see a star
\nappearing in the Eastern sky:
\nno beacon we may travel by
\ntill we no longer reckon technically.<\/p>\n
25 December 1996<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
STENTORIAN CHANT<\/p>\n
Turning my back in bed, I make
\na monastery wall, a cell
\nof solitude. I contemplate<\/p>\n
the lullaby of snores: my fellow
\ncenobites are singing, wife
\nand baby both exhaling mellow<\/p>\n
music. Regulated life,
\nhabitual cooperation,
\nwork and prayer, the butter knife<\/p>\n
in motion as we say our grace,
\nthe children interrupting it,
\nnothing at meals approaching peace:<\/p>\n
kindergartener has a fit
\nbecause we serve her Grownup Stuff,
\nthe three-year-old revives the snit<\/p>\n
that made him skip his lunch. Enough!
\nBut no parental outburst quells
\ntheir quarrels. Brother in a huff,<\/p>\n
sister with her bossy spells,
\nbehave no better than their past,
\ntheir outraged ancestors. Blood tells.<\/p>\n
January 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
ROMANTIC VERSE WITH CHILDREN<\/p>\n
To celebrate St. Valentine’s in lent
\nI could buy candy, though I gave it up.
\nYou wouldn’t have to share, though if you went
\nout of your way to keep a piece for supper<\/p>\n
Sunday evening when I take time off
\nfrom lenten resolutions, I would cut
\neven that one remaining crumb in half,
\na Zeno’s paradox of marriage. But<\/p>\n
you’d rather have unmarried romance, right?
\nNot evidence of an infinity
\nof making do with half of what we had.<\/p>\n
The children cut our sleep in half at night
\nand keep our loaves dividing every day.
\nGod multiplies our fish. We still get mad.<\/p>\n
14 February 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FALLEN STARLING<\/p>\n
On our one day of clear weather
\nwhen a bird came down our chimney
\nand was thrashing in the fire place
\nbehind the plate glass door,
\nI came home and put together
\nwith some plastic and a flimsy
\njacket hanger made of wire just
\nthe tool to do the chore.<\/p>\n
Sooty feathers in the ashes
\nmade it hard at first to see her,
\nthough a moment later motion set
\nthe living thing apart:
\nwith the energy of passion
\nfleeing one who came to free her,
\nnever guessing my emotion yet
\ninheriting my heart.<\/p>\n
Flying past me to the window,
\nperching briefly on the cradle,
\nbrain incapable of fathoming
\nthe mystery of glass,
\nstopping there until I pinned her,
\nhardly moving till we made it
\nto the open door, the pathway clear:
\nshe paused. I let her pass.<\/p>\n
26 February 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CATULLUS 101<\/p>\n
Through many countries, over many seas,
\nI’ve come here, brother, to these gloomy rites
\nto give the final gift of death to you:
\ninconsequential words spent on mute ashes.<\/p>\n
Fate has taken you away from me,
\npoor brother that I cherished carried off.
\nNow look at this! Pathetic rites our parents
\nwould have favored! Take them with many tears.
\nForever, brother, greetings and goodbye.<\/p>\n
Atque in perpetuum, frater, ave atque vale.<\/p>\n
18 March 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
DIVESTITURE<\/p>\n
Always a bit aloof
\nI look and sympathize:
\ninside my snug disguise
\nnever a leaky roof.<\/p>\n
My clock goes off on time
\nmaster of its alarm
\ncoming to little harm
\nin spite of local crime.<\/p>\n
Hardly a cloud in sight
\nwith curtains I can use
\nto miss one if I choose.
\nClosing them every night<\/p>\n
repeating in my prayers
\nblessings enjoyed today,
\nhappy alone, I say
\nmy last words unawares:<\/p>\n
finally figure out
\nthe parable in which
\nthe rich and poor man switch
\nleaving behind all doubt.<\/p>\n
25 March 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
GLOSS<\/p>\n
Docilitas, docility,
\na minor virtue certainly,
\nbut not the vice
\nwe like to make it seem.
\nIt just means teachability —
\na willingness, a harmony
\nthat lets one tend
\nthe day and not the dream.<\/p>\n
March 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SOLOS<\/p>\n
Helen wonders what I’m writing:
\nsomething TO her or ABOUT her?<\/p>\n
In the car she keeps a keyboard,
\nplays it if I show up late.<\/p>\n
Gave it to her for her birthday.
\nShe gave me a harp. I keep it<\/p>\n
on the mantle near the dragons,
\nuse it when the children pause.<\/p>\n
Seldom as we play together
\nin our solos we remember<\/p>\n
where the wherewithal developed:
\nblown reeds, plucked strings. Mischief. Mist.<\/p>\n
13 May 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
REVERIE<\/p>\n
Raking remains of last year’s grass
\nI think about the box of seed
\nhalf empty in the potting shed.<\/p>\n
I saw it when I got the rake,
\nthe seed below the spider web
\nwell suited for a plot of shade.<\/p>\n
I question its vitality.
\nMaybe I’ll clear away the silk,
\nsow seed around the maple tree.<\/p>\n
And if it thrives we’ll have a lawn
\nand if it fails an argument:
\nmy wife will say I should have known.<\/p>\n
Variations on a theme.
\nNothing will grow here. I’m to blame.<\/p>\n
18 May 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
COMPACT<\/p>\n
Whatever agrees to grow
\nI’ll foster in my garden —
\nI never plant or sow,
\nconsider myself the warden
\nof a liberal preserve,
\nmy mandate to conserve.<\/p>\n
Clover in my lawn,
\ngrass in my flower beds.
\nMy dandelions, gone
\nto seed, have lost their heads
\nand broadcast their opinions
\nto neighboring dominions.<\/p>\n
But in those foreign lands
\ntheir seed will sprout and die
\nas from their decks all hands
\nspray the prevailing lie
\ndistinguishing mere weeds
\nfrom so-called better breeds.<\/p>\n
8 June 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CONDITIONED<\/p>\n
Familiar places welcome me:
\nthe livelihood of my routine
\ndepends on their stability.<\/p>\n
Midsummer brings a growth of green
\npredictable as interest.
\nLocking the door of one machine<\/p>\n
I look around and do my best
\nto profit by the natural
\nas I approach another. Test<\/p>\n
the air and find it fragrant, full
\nof flower scent and fungus. There!
\nI’ve reached my office door. I pull<\/p>\n
it back and breathe conditioned air.<\/p>\n
June 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
FLY PAPER<\/p>\n
Why we call a fly-leaf
\nwhat we call it I can’t say:
\na moment ago an insect
\nlanded on this trap
\nwhich had no glue to hold it.<\/p>\n
Nor does it hold me.
\nSo I turn the page and study
\nmore attractive tracts.
\nBut do the phrases stick
\nor do I stick to them?<\/p>\n
Flies immobilized
\non the paper in my brain
\nwiggle a while and die:
\nor I myself a fly
\nwalking a tacky way.<\/p>\n
1 September 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
SECOND VERSE<\/p>\n
Children noisome
\ndog too loud:
\nso-called joysome
\nnoises crowd
\nalready densely
\npopulated
\nspace: immensely
\nsenseless: fated
\ndissipation:
\nout of breath
\nas long vacations
\nend in death.<\/p>\n
But everybody
\ndies and life
\ngoes on: cruddy
\nin corners, rife
\nwith credit cards
\nand shoplifters,
\npointed shards
\nand phone grifters,
\npeople learning
\nhow to read,
\npeople earning
\nwhat they need.<\/p>\n
1 September 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
OUR CIVILIZATION<\/p>\n
I love the river but I seldom visit —
\nand though I live two blocks from the riverbank
\nI could as easily dwell in the desert
\nfor all the good it does me: standing here<\/p>\n
gathering accumulated lint
\nso I can dry the laundry. But the children
\nneed fresh clothing. Though we can see the water
\nfrom the window of our van, we never<\/p>\n
pause beside it much less disembark.
\nOn the way to somewhere else — the mall,
\nthe ballet lesson or the hair salon —<\/p>\n
we have no time to loiter. And at home
\nnow that we’ve installed the central air
\nwe stay indoors all year with the windows closed.<\/p>\n
11-16 October 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
INUNDATED<\/p>\n
Autumn hasn’t ended yet —
\na technicality.
\nEye sockets
\nof the pumpkin skull
\ndevelop lids of snow.<\/p>\n
I rake away the furry leaves.
\nIn simulated drifts
\nthey gather
\nevidence that fall
\nhas fallen. Winter grows<\/p>\n
like crystal, inorganic growth,
\nwithout fertility.
\nCall it
\na test of human skill.
\nWe can with what we know<\/p>\n
survive the winter. We believe
\nhowever things may shift
\nthey come
\naround and after all
\nthe glacier melts and flows.<\/p>\n
November 1997<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
CRUIT<\/p>\n
To glory in the ordinary
\none need only pay
\nattention. And a
\nform of mental prayer<\/p>\n
eliminates the commonplace.
\nA potter shaping clay
\ninvents potential
\nby surrounding air.<\/p>\n
Has anything a benefit
\nmore basic than the way
\nwet earth caked fingers
\nshape the nothing there?<\/p>\n
A stark lid makes a darkening
\nto which the liquid play
\nof wine and oil and
\nvinegar repair.<\/p>\n
24 December 1997<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kevin Cawley NO RAILING We took a train from Michigan to Utah. Broke down outside Chicago. Two hours late we crossed the eastern prairie as we ate and put the plains behind us in the night. Woke up in Colorado. April snow. In Denver when the dining car derailed we sat for three more […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5084,"featured_media":0,"parent":41,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-73","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5084"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=73"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":75,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/73\/revisions\/75"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/41"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.nd.edu\/wcawley\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}