Brooms, and: My Legacy

Brooms

Pero la muerte va también por el mundo vestida de escoba,
lame el suelo buscando difuntos,
la muerte està en la escoba

- Pablo Neruda

"Daddy, what do they make brooms of?"
my small son asked, but I don't recall

my answer - Twigs? Grass? Straw?
But today his words come back to me

because it is his yahrzeit once again,
day of his death, worst on my calendar,

the one no distraction works for. I ride
along with a rancher friend in his pickup

and we stop at the general store and gas
pump in Rodeo, New Mexico, are about

to pull out as an ancient truck roars past
with swirls of straw catching light, a wake

looking like ten thousand butterflies.
"They're on the way," my friend remarks,

"and they'll bring a load of brooms back
from Mexico, where they make them,"

and though there are only the two of us
in his Ford pickup we might as well be three.

My son might ask why not make brooms here,
not in Mexico? Are we too lazy to tie string

around straw, or do we prefer a mechanical
contraption - vacuum for inside, fool leafblower

for outside? With my son we could discuss
the philosophy and ecology of brooms, for he

cared about earth's well being. It's the little
things that break you - a son who asked about brooms

and once begged of a peacock a bright feather.

My Legacy

When, in the National Archives in Washington,
I examined many letters that had been written
to the President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt-

and even more that had been sent to his wife,
known to have a bigger heart and more compassion-
though he had not yet refused to swap Jeeps

for the lives of Jews - I came across little gifts
that had been tucked in, locks of hair, snapshots,
prize ribbons from the State Fair, birthday

and anniversary cards - anything to show how life
was for them out in the Dust Bowl or on the lakes,
and how the people wished Mr.and Mrs.Roosevelt

happiness and the kind of prosperity they too would
not mind enjoying. They poured out their hearts,
told of their losses, their griefs, how the crops

had failed and the rivers gone dry. More than one
ratted on neighbors, several of whom - working alone
or with a notorious gang - had kidnapped the Lindbergh

baby. Directions were given for finding the body-
it seemed every city and state had a Lindbergh baby.
These people reported their dreams - what the future

held for the President, his nation and the entire world.
Wars were predicted. Dates for collisions with planets
were confided. A Kansas woman confessed that she

had been impregnated by a snake, and wanted the F.B.I.
to find that snake and shoot him down like Dillinger.
When I opened one of the letters and unfolded the pages

a coin fell out - an Indian head penny. I was amazed
that it was still there after so many years, that no one
had slipped it into a pocket. I looked around, saw that

I could get away with it. And since I was half certain
it was the one my mother had lost on the farm long ago,
what would have been the harm? I would only be claiming

my legacy, placed there for the belated finding. But,
being a proud citizen, I did not take it. I sacrificed it
to the Republic. Then I went on reading until my heart

sickened with the all too familiar scent of stale poverty.
Yet for all my questing I found not one tear-stained
      letter to the President written by my mother.