Country Music: Selected Early Poems

Firstborn

Firstborn —Omnia quae sunt, lumina SUM— 1. The sugar dripping into your vein; The jaundice rising upon your face like a blush; The glass box they keep you in— The bandage over your eyes; The curdled milk on your lips; The plastic tube in your throat— The unseen hands that linger against your skin; The name, like a new scar, at your wrist; The glass box they keep you in— We bring what we have to bring; We give what we have to give; Welcome, sweet Luke, to your life. 22 2. The bougainvillaea's redress Pulses throughout the hillside, its slow Network of vines Holding the earth together, giving it breath; Outside your window, hibiscus and columbine Tend to their various needs; The summer enlarges. You, too, enlarge, Becoming accessible, Your liquid reshufflings Protracted and ill defined, Yet absolute after all, the new skin Blossoming pink and clear. 23 3. You lie here beside me now, Ineffable, elsewhere still. What should one say to a son? Emotions and points of view, the large Abstractions we like to think We live by—or would live by if things Were other than what they are; Or we were; or others were; If all were altered and more distinct? Or something immediate, Descriptive, the virtuous use of words? What can one say to a son? 24 4. If it were possible, if A way had been overlooked To pull that rib of pure light Out of its cage, those few felicitous vowels Which expiate everything . . . But nothing has been left out, Nothing been overlooked. The words remain in the dark, and will Continue to glitter there; No tricks we try to invent, No strategies, can now extract them. And dust is dust for a long time. 25 5. What I am trying to say Is this—I tell you, only, the thing That I have come to believe: Indenture yourself to the land; Imagine you touch its raw edges In all weather, time and again; Imagine its colors; try to imitate, day by day, The morning's growth and the dusk, The movement of all their creatures; Surrender yourself, and be glad; This is the law that endures. 26 6. The foothills of Tennessee, The mountains of North Carolina, Their rivers and villages —Hiwassee and Cherokee, The Cumberland, Pisgah and Nantahala, Unaka and Unicoi— Brindle and sing in your blood; Their sounds are the sounds you hear, Their shapes arc the shapes you see Regardless, whenever you concentrate Upon the remembered earth —All things that are are lights. 27 ...