June '02 [Home] Poetry Distance from the Tree

~ C ~ Lake Huron My Father at Prades D. Nurkse Fire on the Beach Father of Water Charles Pierre Versions of My Father's Disappearance Into a Hawk Ron Price The Handkerchief James Ragan Mixing the Colors Jessy Randall Sit Down, Dad Earl W. Roberts, III

The Visible Spectrum Between Ultra-Violet And Infra-Red Laura Sherwood Rudish Picture of A Man At Peace Mervyn Taylor My Father's Poem Autobiographical Twelve-Year-Old Angelo Verga Saturn The Marriage of Edgar and Cordelia William Wadsworth Sand Sestina What work is that? Rob Wright Contributor Notes ~A~    ~B~

~ . ~ . ~ Lake Huron D. Nurkse Ashamed of the worm's pain my father casts deep into rushes. Immediately the line quickens as if it were living— as if the space between us were immortal— and the fish is at our feet. My father would like to throw it back to that unreal opposite shore made of dusk and the color blue but he can't work the hook free of the tiny jaw without causing great harm perhaps only he can feel and I watch him grow old caught in the trance of a man undoing a knot. The trout died between us but its tail still lashes in a perfect circle— flesh that was to be our sacrament, that we were to carry home for a woman to clean in one of those lit windows that have already begun to appear at intervals along the coast and also shining from the void. ~ . My Father at Prades D. Nurkse He has left his life with his baggage in the village. Now he walks by himself in the forest at Prades. A tiny sparrow with a fat chest hops up and considers him gravely: he's no longer the enemy. Under a clump of white mushrooms no one will harvest he finds flowers with no names: a teardrop, a bead of blood. He stumbles on a hidden spring and sips a loud rushing voice and the cold of another planet. Now he can enter the wild hives and scoop that cloudy honey in both hands and the one who was stung was a stranger, an exile. No war, no child, no suffering. Only the waterfall in the fog. (Prior publ.: The Yale Review and The Rules of Paradise, a collection by the author, published by Four Way Books.) ~ . ~ Fire on the Beach Charles Pierre Look closely at the measure of flame this driftwood affords. The stars burn so damn coldly that only the abstract mind could warm to their distant icy whiteness. Yet here is a hearth to sit by and linger on. No modern vessel passing in the night needs this signal, but heart and bone are never modern. Look more closely at the glow, as the gray logs, washed so long by the ocean to a smooth indifference, remember the green vigor of seed time and sapling years and burst once more in the air through which they sang, now waving as flames of primal color. In this ancient language is the hot breath of spirit rising above sand and sea, a voice of fire sparkling more brightly than stars can shine. ~ . Father of Water Charles Pierre I have searched for his image in the waves, only to have him rush through my fingers, foaming and featureless, back to the Atlantic, without the paternal surge I expected to flow from my reading of all those volumes of water, where he coalesced and shone in the salt mist, gathering stature in his approach to the shore, before slanting away, slipping from his shape and dissipating in a glint of sun, as the beach unbound the image, splashing it against me in sparkling drops of the sea's erasure. (Both published previously in Rattapallax) ~ . ~ Versions of My Father's Disappearance Into a Hawk Ron Price A highway motel a man alone in bed with a chill congruent to the pre-dawn March fog he lies in a shabby room his hands trembling Falling rain violent thunder pale before the bitter tears of a young man his father dead at a roadside motel in Birmingham A double bed in a single room outside Birmingham a flask of Cutty Sark and the radio and the radio The women I come from believe the dying give their final creature breath to whatever is near and needs it The maid found him at noon his hand reaching toward the window as if he were waving to the spotted hawk circling the field next to his motel The pitch of its call came as I grew older to underscore the silence of a man dead in a motel room a flask of Cutty Sark on the nightstand next to the radio that plays It plays for anyone not listening to the hawk (From A Small Song Called Ash from the Fire (Rattapallax Press 2001)) ~ . ~ The Handkerchief James Ragan On the secret map of sleep where she dreamed she was in a cloister scooping off the wet weeds of the garden she had raked with orange leaf through her hair, the kerchief lay, embroidered silk her mother soaked to cool her brow and throat. The fever walked in circles through the eyes, fire nested in her feet. Nowhere was the melody of dance she praised on waking. Hardly had she heard the spring geese bray to horses interloping down the hill at dusk, when walking, a swift wrist riding the sweat from his brow, he came, as promised, to her second dance, to muscle up the brawling thugs who vowed to steal her breath. The mother now had spoken. At fifteen years, don't toss your willowed hair in golden dips along the swirling ground. But giving all the chance she couldn't know her mind was giving, she stole each offered hand the boys declared, numbed as they were by fear or simply heartbroken. The night was guilt and fevered. Until the handkerchief was thrown, a band in silk whose silver hurdled across the ballroom's sphere of stars. The suitor now had spoken. As silently as thought which skips the question to form an answer, she walked to face him, one a mirror, the other forest. She climbed as far and high into his mind as sleep, then took his hand betrothed into the silk, the sweat from each brow, a scent of oranges, commingling, and dipping her willowed tress of gold across his eyes, she scooped the wet weeds of the garden from his feet. (From The Hunger Wall (Grove, 1997). The author's father proposes to his mother in accordance with rural Slovak custom.) ~ . ~ Mixing the Colors Jessy Randall Jenny Larter and I, age seven, made modeling clay pizzas every day at summer camp, unwilling to break out of this habit once we got good at it: rolling the yellow crust, attaching the red pepperoni, the white mushrooms, the orange cheese. Jenny Larter's dad owned a store that sold "novelties." This was the first time I ever heard that word used as a noun, or at all, really. Sometimes, at the end of camp, we hung out in the storage room there, surrounded by boxes of plastic spiders, fake vomit, and collars for invisible dogs. Jenny Larter's dad was fat and bearded. I suppose the beard could have been a "novelty," but the fat was real. He was real, too, which was more than I could say of my own father. It would have been a great NOVELTY if MY father had ever shown up at camp or at my own house, ever. So there we are, me and Jenny, making pizza out of colored mud. We have to be careful not to mix the colors. We have to wash our hands afterward with the sickly-sweet pink camp soap, scrubbing and scrubbing to get rid of the smell of rubber. ~ . ~ Sit Down, Dad Earl W. Roberts, III Sit down, Dad. Hear the whisper of resurrection's rumor, that the tomb's door has opened just a crack. Receive your silenced wish; she is coming to you soon, driven by some fearful need, to see the end of thirty years. Relationship long resting in bitter, malignant death. Can you smell the rush of fetid air? How difficult the bindings are to loose. Liberation, not death you desired, saved your life and lost your daughter. Sit down, Dad. Hear the whisper. Resurrection comes with joy and terror. ~ . ~ The Visible Spectrum Laura Sherwood Rudish We sit side by side at the polished pear-wood table, Our reflections blurred in a soft shine of knotted wood. He wears a peach lambswool sweater and khaki pants. This is a great room, I say. The afternoon sun slants Through a south window and pools on the faded Persian rug. I sit here at night, he says. In that chair by the window— Watching. His brown eyes water. Watching what, Dad? He looks down at his hands. The ice melts in my glass of diet coke. I'm being erased, he says, and not just that— I'm erasing myself. And I'm watching. ~ . Between Ultra-Violet And Infra-Red Laura Sherwood Rudish Daddy's in pain again. Wordless He mouths too much too much. He's in a new light Gray sweatsuit. A white restraining belt Sags around his chest. Such high cheekbones— Wish I had such high cheekbones, Jessica says but she's in tears. The room is warm. A nurse's aide floats in In a yellow gown and mask. She moves him from chair to bed. None of us knows how. ~ . ~ Picture of A Man At Peace Mervyn Taylor After my father died my aunt Sheila the Matron Sat him up in a rocker and had his picture taken. A strong woman, I remember she took him bodily From the bed, shunting his weight off her hip onto the cane-bottomed seat. His feet looked like feathers brushing the carpet Before she adjusted them, forcing them apart Until his heels rested on the crossbar as if he had Placed them there himself. He seemed to resist As she pushed his head to one side, the way he Always grimaced when anyone tried to kiss him. Except for Cousin Judy. Her he welcomed and Let smooth his hair and never bit, even when she Pried his lips open to look at his teeth which were Incredibly strong and white till the day he passed. The rest of us he kept away from the money stashed Under his pillow, snarling as the rheumatism took hold. That's when Sheila came, in her retirement from the Princes Town Hospital, her needles blunt as screws, Working them into his arms as I watched over Her shoulder, wincing as he winced, magnified Through her glasses, his skin folding under her Bifocals, till he screamed, grown man in pain. Beyond that now, he sat, as the photographer Fixed the tripod, and went under the black cover To check the focus and the light. And I remember How Sheila made him wait while she adjusted My father's pajamas, and how in the snapshot (that since I could only bear to look at once), They had come undone again. ~ . ~ My Father's Poem Angelo Verga fedora wearing, you dad, wide overcoat armored tough guy me, 5, at your side in earmuffs & boots stomping the platform of the Union Square station, waiting, the long train ride to Bronx home. another guy even bigger than you, even more square shouldered— did he step on your toe, rub hard elbows, fail to step aside? jesus, did you know him? no words, no warning, one sudden right hand blow, a twelve inch thunder bolt crumpled him to the cold concrete, metal-edged floor you stood over him but he wouldn't, couldn't, get up, and then all at once the southbound Brooklyn train arrived and you whisked me under your widened left arm and we were gone, quick & completely in the wrong direction, i remember his hat rolling oh so slowly onto the tracks from the wind our escape made. your eyes said don't tell mom & i didn't dad, i wanted to be you, wanted you to be him but i never wanted to tell mom anything, not one damn word i wanted to be a man who didn't have to talk but i wanted to record everything, the way the platform curved from north to south the way parts of it extended into that dangerous curve between car & platform so people could step over without falling into that fierce blackness that divides destination from the trip, the smell of fear on the shrinking crowd which, parting, left us alone, and this is what really got deep inside me, dad: fast decisions easily beat any & all hesitations: words, soft, are weak, actions, the stronger the better, make you male. jesus, dad, did that other man's heel step on your methodically polished toes? i wish I could ask you, i wish i knew, but your huge shoes can't answer, and my silence—after all I'm your son—won't ask. ~ . Autobiographical Twelve-Year-Old Angelo Verga I'm crouched, like that gook was When he dropped his bowl, whacked On caked Mekong mud I carve my bicep muscle Blood trickles from my elbow My chisel a sharp chunk of green wine jug My name has six letters Two of them have curves Just my luck Lipuma's drugstore I stock his shelves Sneak a pint of cough syrup Scrub his tight-necked jars Earn a dollar an hour, tips For climbing five-storey walkups My sister (my daughter) ties off with a belt Sticks a needle in her forearm Shoots a bag of junk I'm a year away from Not getting banged around by anyone Not even my father. ~ . ~ Saturn William Wadsworth It was our favorite game. My sisters and I escorted him to the usual place at the foot of the stairs. His slicked-back hair gleaming black, he grinned down at us, pulled off his jacket and tie: big neck, big chest, ex-tackle for the Big Ten. He closed his eyes as he lay on the floor and sprawled on his back. He passed into a solemn hibernation. My pulse raced. Anne sat on his legs and grabbed his ankles, her strong arms rigid as she pinned his feet. Nancy knelt on his left arm. I remember her blond bangs and battered shins who with gap-toothed fury whispered He's sleeping. Quick! I dug my knees deep in his biceps, pressed my hands in the thick fur of his wrist. I stared at my hands. Then his chest moved with a groan, his white shirt rose and fell. I smelled my father's body, the complexity of his sweat. The hand flexed— we cried out when suddenly the whole frame shifted. We tried to escape, but he pulled us all into the air with a growl and swayed as he stood, kissing the combined bodies of his three children. And we were convinced in our ecstasy that our father was eating us. And we believed he would not put us down. And the hand, the arm, the hairy wrist, the smell of sweat, the gleaming head, are more real than my own body now. My sisters kneel on the floors of their houses. They are searching for his arms and legs. I know what happens next. I make a fist and feel the minutes digging in my wrist. (Prior publ.: Paris Review) ~ . The Marriage of Edgar and Cordelia William Wadsworth After Edgar drove the wolves from England, their vows were spoken in the age of reason. Years later, she confessed to having played the fool because she would not leave her father to a family of wolves. In the age of reason the psychological law of cause and effect has proved that every family's agony begins again when the children fall in love. My family gathers on the lawn, admiring the moon. My father is the first to howl. Howl, howl, howl, said her father. Her body in his arms took the terrible bow of silence. He held a mirror to her lips and found her breath on a feather; then he drove himself from England, outside the age of reason. I write this with a feather on your mirror: we think that by a naked impulsive act we pacify the wolves, but in fact this is a fully dressed rehearsal, and our words, our most passionate words, are the lines that we recite. Look: our families gather on the heath. (Prior publ.: The New Republic) ~ . ~ Sand Sestina Rob Wright When my father sits, sand falls from his still-black hair. He pretends not to notice or to care even when he picks it from his food. I've seen it floating on the surface of a beer and as the foam settles, silica and dollhouse shells tumble down slowly. He often stares at his hands, flexing them slowly, picking sand from the nails, the curling hair as if in wonder, what they've done; settles them on the table, doesn't seem to care. But this quiet, this peace is all surface, covering a darkness he lives on, his food. He sits among us, unaging, neglecting food lighting cigarettes, drawing the smoke in slowly making jokes at our expense, skating on the surface of cruelty: someone's baldness, someone's hair. Someone leaves the table. He doesn't care, or pretends not to, his way of settling old scores, I suspect, a way of settling the past with the present. This is the food that makes you tough, that makes you not care what anyone does, thinks, says. Slowly the sand drizzles to the table from his hair gathering in little mounds on the surface as if a crab were burrowing below the surface Sand brought from Pacific atolls, settles into my own shoes, clothes, hair. I feel the grit, taste the bitterness in any food I share with this unaging veteran. Slowly sand has seeped in, until I'm finished caring how many historic hells he's seen, don't care to see the campaign ribbons, the surfaces dull and pitted by age, the gold plate slowly peeling to tin, or listen again to the settled bigotry which nourishes him like food and keeps him unaged, black-haired Care? Who could care if he settles old scores at my expense, covers the surface of my food slowly with all the sand left in his still-back hair? ~ . What work is that? Rob Wright "What work is it you do again?" my father asks, running a patch and line down a rifle barrel, filling the kitchen with the haze of gun oil, and venison seared on a skillet and seasoned with molasses and vinegar. "Writing." (He answers for me.) "Fit work for a man of education." The oil and smoke are eyewatering. He flips a patty. Spheres of grease hop across the blackened iron and kiss his hand. "Son-of-a.…" He bites off the curse, showing teeth white, straight, and cared for, like the gunstocks and rifle barrels. "Poetry," he says through tears, pretending. I watch the burn swell and blister the second joint of his middle finger. He presses down the spatula. Pink meat steams and hisses. "Who sends the checks?" he asks. Often, I think I can write the rest, work it up to monologue, but can't; he's predictable, but subtle. "Different people," I answer. "Lunatics," he says, tipping grease into a coffee can. He can do better: the burn has knocked him off his square. "Who doesn't love poetry?" I offer. " 'Long as it's not out' my taxes." (An old gambit, but one with power to sting.) "Greedy bastards." I've worked assembly lines to write, and his education matches mine; his fingers would be pink and shining if not for nightly gun cleaning. He slides the patties onto plates, and tucks away the wheelchair where his second wife sat out her days, kept, like a lobster trap in the cubby of a retired fisherman, with the basin where he washed her body, the sole witness to her long decline, her eye's mute intelligence. Unlike me, he doesn't hold misery in, but likes to roll it on his knuckles: a magic trick for children. "What work is that again?" ~A~    ~B~   [Home]