We Shine and Burn

Misshapen Chaos of Well-Seeming Forms

So much of what becomes, in time, real loveIs filed in vast archives of accident,Surprise from clumsy chance, the gloveOne forgets on a subway, the momentAnother elects to seize it and shout “oh, miss”Or “sir,” and to spring after, waving it,Onto the platform, “did you forget this?”Such acts are rare. When they come, they cast lightAcross the disarrays that dim our days.We seem to come to love by mistake, butIt is a spark that starts a fuse upon its way:And not a merest moment’s chance, or whatWe choose to give, or what we lose or leave,But what, with luck, at last, we will receive.

Sing We

—St. Andrew’s Cemetery, Mount Holly

Berry-plump, the bees bungle through sparse grass.They ride cool gusts, eddy around meAs I cradle a guitar at my father’s stoneThis spring afternoon. Shadows of boughs massAnd sweep the lichened epitaph. Pine conesAre piled in needle patches beneath the tree.The swarm spares me. It knows I’ve beenThrough enough. Its golds emblazon the graysAnd worn-out browns. An impudent black flyAlights again and again on my hand. I pin It with my palm, then let it go. It staysWith me and lands again. Blocking the sky,Sentries of Weymouth Pine drain glittering oldWounds down furrowed sides pearled like mold.I strum a jumble of chords, but they will notResolve to songs I so long ago forgot.

My Father’s Dante

You were gone twenty years before I readThe book that draws me faster on to you.The world you left got worse, and crowded too:Charon capsized by cargoes of new dead.I’m midway gone, in a grim winter mood,Pinned by all I did instead of what I could.Among the lessons I failed till now to learnIs that, however handsome or witty,We should expect to receive no pity.We hurt as much from what we half forgetAs from the things we carefully conserve.You say: There is so much more to observe.We will descend, and see, and not regretThat we fall, we shiver—we shine and burn.