Eldest Daughter: Poems

Steam Calliope

63 Steam Calliope Blue-Ribbon Float, 4th of July Parade| i | Strangers, tourists at the small-town parade, wincing when we bump shoulders. We shuffle in the bowl of a narrow mountain valley that now—without warning—clamors like a three-alarm bell: paddle-wheel steamboat in the Mississippi channel? Coney Island merry-go-round? Mill whistle gone haywire? Cowering—fortissimo assault on all ears—we see a sheet-metal flue heave toward us, tall as aspen, soot black against the blue-glazed Colorado sky. Wavering pitches shove against each other: Bill Grogan’s Goat opens our throats— our hearts fly into our mouths, our hats fly into the air— our hearts leave our mouths and fly up after our hats. It’s our favorite song. The whistle blew. The train drew nigh: It’s the Industrial Revolution—all flying steam, all fly-ball governors and machined caps, die-cast worm gears, sheet copper glinting like fireworks. Bill Grogan’s goat is doomed to die. Crazed thunderheads whiz up like coveys of flushed quail. It’s an outsized whistling teakettle, and it’s getting closer. It’s a giant espresso machine. It could blow up any minute. 64 Now we see, in striped stokers’ aprons, young men ride the float. Snap chamois cloths, jiggle counterweights, eye the flywheel— fine in green paint, fine disregard for intonation. It’s right in front of us, we’re jack-hammered into the pavement. Our lungs flatten, our eyes water. Bill Grogan’s goat . . . flags the train at last and the diapason fades. Deafness after detonation: we look but can’t hear, press together on the curb, our eyes level with the knees of the stokers. They are altar boys, functionaries. When will our sins be forgiven and the Gloria begin? They twist acorn nuts, tap glass pipe gauges, bleed off pressure from a port like the spit valve on a trumpet, in good time complete their offices, and at last, at last, an invisible high priest wheels into— Popeye the Sailor Man. We cheer, we rock back and forth in relief, pound each other on the backs. It’s our favorite song. Pop-Eye the sailor MAN WRONG NOTE! We flinch—a blow to all stomachs. MAN missed again. MAN AGAIN! We are battered silly. The stokers roll their eyes, nudge each other— you learn at your first piano recital not to poke around to find the right note. 65 And now we see the old geezer himself, engineer’s cap pushed back on his head, manning a j-rigged keyboard of wooden levers. He’s playing by ear, showing the tip of his tongue. Pop-Eye the Sailor Man He is Pecos Bill, straddling the hurricane. I’m Pop-Eye the Sailor Man He is Orpheus, charming the elements to time signature. I like to go swimmin’ with bow-legged women He does not know we are listening! I’m Pop-Eye the Sailor Man. He Is Who He Is. Bottomless quiet—we grope for our bearings. The stokers, bled of sound, are computer programmers, market reps from Denver, costumed from a history when steam drivers plumbed mineshafts for silver, locomotives wheezed cumulus that shooed buffalo herds. We count cylinders of the manifold— eight brass whistles, one note each: His repertory is limited. Go Tell Aunt Rhody, the calliope orders the rimmed valley. The oak-staved boiler is moving away from us, cinching hoops bright as army spitshine. The flue sighs sparks against the darker mountains behind it. Go Tell Aunt Rhodie, it wails again. I am losing sight of it: rivets, collet chucks, conjured storm clouds, jigsaw bearing-bronze. An altar boy hefts a quarter log of spruce, 66 and at the base of the boiler chamber, opens the cast-iron door to the firebox. Go tell Aunt Rhodie, pleads the machine, The old grey goose is dead. I look straight into the fire.| ii | A different valley, gentler: We moved so often, I always had to ask my mother which one. The steeple of the tiny Baptist church boasted chimes—one single octave, no black keys. The technological imperative came over him: he’d play almost every night. Through trial and much error, he figured out a coincidence in range with the old bagpipe hymns: Amazing Grace, How Firm a Foundation. The first line of Joy to the World stumped down the eight consecutive notes like...