1947, and: Ars Arachnea, and: Not Knowing the Names

1947

My parents were sitting innocentlyin their first living room,listening, perhaps, to George & Gracie,when, suddenly, I landed like a sackof old socks on their shoulders.Then from the unexpected openingin the ceiling a gleaming Frigidairethat would last forever piled on topof them, a steel-framed ironing boardand the iron whistling down,a 1946 Ford Sportsman with exteriorwood trim, and, like a madnessof confetti, bills twisting downand stacking up on top of everything.

My parents squirmed and squaredtheir shoulders. They stood and heldhands. And took their first stepsunder all of ittoward the open front door.

Ars Arachnea

A yellow-black garden spider                           approximately the sizeof an infant's fist               has been stringing lines between the arbor vitae and dogwood                           all morning.I watch her from the deck,     Mary Oliver's American Primitive,a small fan of leaves,                           open on my lap.The spider spins her cautionary tale,                 abandoning one partafter another                           of herself to builda silken net. She's a strict revisionist,                   doubling up on lines too thin,repositioning breaks and end stops.                       Then, when she imaginesher performance is strong enough,               she retiresto a browning dogwood leaf           and becomes a clot of air,dozing a bit perhaps, simply waiting                   for something to trip the light . . .

And for some reason I think of a man                   who has never given a flickerof thought to poetry.                   But now his lover has handed hima hurtful line and walked out,               and he finds himself confused,his brain dithering           in a bookstore poetry aisle.What odd wind drove him here?               He blunders into a book;it topples into his hands.               He opens it, growsluminous green wings, and is caught.

Not Knowing the Names

City folk, my wife and I walk along Cave Run Lake.We've bought a cabin in the wildsof Daniel Boone's Forest, and we're lovingthe commerce of birdchatter and late Maysunshine playing with the waves speedboatssend to shore.   Look, I say, pointing to a red-crestedbird on a low branch. What's that called?You don't know; besides, you're busy kneelingin front of a clump of pinkish flowersshowing off in a warm breeze.   Any idea what these things are?you say, and no, I have a book somewhere,but Oh, Linda, that yellow thing zigzaggingby the shore? What's its name? We lockNeanderthalithic eyes. I winch up my knucklesfrom the ground. Yes!-I remember now! It'sa bronze, doodle-headed flipper-flapper.So you point out, at my feet, a chorus lineof yellow-freckled tongue-danglers. I'm proudto introduce you, then, to the cockle-eyed,dunce-crested twig hopper, as you spot, abovemy head, a cone-beaked jim-dandy.   We go on with this naming,laughing alongside patient bush and flowerand tree, until we see coming toward usour new neighbors, the old, earnest couplearound the bend who will surely, we've been told,be inviting us to the Salt Lick Baptist Church.   Shit, you say, What are their names?Fred & Ethel? I conjecture. George & Gracie?Then there's no turning back.   Hi, you say when their facescome into focus. We're glad to finally meet you.I'm whatshername, and this is my husband, Whozit.