General
Self-Portrait as Ekphrastic Tension
Let's call it what it is: desire,
or hope, or chaos. Something
sublime--a gilded frieze you touched
in Brussels, for love, in the public square;
a vase you carried on your back through
Asia because, though it cracked
along the way, you thought it was sacred.
What you should know about hope
is that it can't be pinned down. Either
you feel it or you don't and don't
mistake it for desperation. The old
stone will shift because of your
fingers; sugar peas snap.
The morning light in your living
room will catch every gap
in the vase if you glue it back together.
Hammer
I was looking for a way into him,
a point like a piano key that could
be struck, or played, followed through with
a finger stroke or the full force heel
of my hand and still transmit its tonal
pulse to the intended string. He found his
way into me as if there were no felt
at all covering my small, embodied
hammers. Maybe, like a harpsichord,
my strings were simply plucked, with a quill
or some incised thorn of leather. Music
was never a direct hit with him: some
days the tune could resonate for hours,
others he lay mute, naked and controlled.
Temple on the Gore Road
We don't have words
for this kind of incongruity,
ancient beauty replicated
on Canadian soil, plunked
at the edge of the subdivision,
postcard ziggurat.
We drive south into the city
on a Thanksgiving Monday
while the cars going north
queue along the Gore Road, idling
as if caught mid-parade. We are going
the wrong way for worship--
a lineup we will never join,
not for the pantheonic rush,
not for the budget homes,
not for the wonder.
But we will stop for fresh corn at the side
of the road, for funeral processions, red lights.
We've chosen our temples, our gods,
and now their resplendence defies us.
CEREMONY
A crow walks
its muddy
kneeless walk
across
a freshly plowed field.
In this light,
I see the crow
as crows are--
so much seems possible.
WHEN THE MASK OPENS
Inside the raven's mouth
an ancient man's face is carved,
capturing the moment he wept
large tears, potent enough
to put us here forever.
Whatever we call ourselves now.
Whatever we will call ourselves.
It was that ancient man inside the
raven's mouth, driven by loneliness
to despair that put us here forever.
A man standing at his window
is looking through years
at the dancer flipping open
the raven mask, only in
quick glimpses at first. Then,
at the end of the dance, down
on his knees, the dancer
leaves the mask open,
the raven's mouth agape,
the ancient man's face
forever in anguish.
The man knows that he can't
look through all those years
and remember everything
about being seven and seeing
a dancer perform in accordance
with the mask he wore. Only with
the dull and clumsy prodding of
the adult mind can he recall
the place of dance that rotted
and was burned down, or was
burned down before
it was humiliated by rot
in the times of vast poverty.
Yet when a raven looks at him,
head cocked, from a tree outside
his window, he tries to remember
or recreate the earnestness in him
from years ago when a similar raven
looked from that very tree and
the boy wanted it to open
its mouth so he could see
what was inside.
