Endurance, and: The Lord God in His Mercy Looks down on All Things
Rent from DeepDyveEndurance
Odor of apples unpicked and fallen,
half-rotted under their own leaves
fallen later and likewise rotting
in the ultimate week of Autumn
when afternoons reach seventy is
above all forms of remembrance
the slowest to decay in the mind.
More durable than the tender-most
memory of sound, taste, touch, sight.
Even father's voice, hauled-up and
calling downhill at dusk, his soft [End Page 176]
bourbon-dark eyes crossing the yards,
or mother's grip, pinning one wrist
to the sink, warm hand-numbing waters
returning red clay to the riverbank.
Even the familiar monotonous words of Grace
can't outlast the aromas of the meal itself—
potatoes mashed but not too fine,
a few lumps left to stand for sin, with greens—
mustard, collard, or thousand-headed kale—
and peaches, canned last spring,
still grinning in their jars,
cooling tonight on an unreachable sill.
Give thanks, if you can, for what survives,
for what comes when called
and brings along, so nothing's wasted,
all that you can't quite recall.
The Lord God in His Mercy Looks down on All Things
The woodpecker country folk call the Yellow Hammer
came to visit my yard today. Loud
he was and why not, being hungry above all things?
I felt lax in my pursuits alongside him, reading, face cocked
to the sun. He paused and looked up
and did not acknowledge me.
I thought then of my father, two hours away,
propped behind his card table, playing electronic Solitaire,
leaning forward, intent, staring down
at the pixels dissolving in his palm,
coming in low, at night, fast, over Kwajalein.
Stephen Knauth lives in North Carolina and is the author of several poetry collections, including Twenty Shadows and The River I Know You By, both available from Four Way Books.
