Winter Sky: New and Selected Poems, 1968-2008

Salt

200 f r o m g o u r d s e e d Those sufi terms, what you been re-phrasing, pal, they ain’t but half-wrong! (our laughter) Is that what death is, finally making love in a way where gender is fused asunder in some surprise, switcheroo, trainstation bed? Whoooooooooooooooo aunnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnh Yooooooooooooooooooooooooo s a l t I hear me singing hymns, full of fear and rosy pretending. And this art and literature circus is mostly preening and distraction. I can crack Mike’s whip a little, since he’s not here. We need some salt to get the truth more grainy and bare. ————— We go out to buy our grown son a car, a used one. We get down to look under it, 201 f r o m g o u r d s e e d not knowing what we’re looking for, some burbling, viscous drip. We’re lying there on the ground in the car lot when we realize we can’t get up without a lot of help. That’s a funny position to be in. I do wonder how much of my “spirituality” is fantasizing, though I would bet this closeness is a truth we come from and thread back into, like the freestanding waterfall I saw once in a dream. (There’s mystery beyond betting in dreams.) The waterfall flowed from the ground off a cliff’s brow and back underneath at its foot, visible just in descending, standing on its foamy nest, beginning and ending. We are these pouring moments of autumn water, as though a basin broke. And there’s no explaining what gets stirred around in the soup of our small talk. We’ve just the taste. ————— 202 f r o m g o u r d s e e d Who’s in that corner booth? Some old ghost. He must be an illusion. I didn’t see him much last year, and this year’s not any better. He must be part of my very soul. Look at that pigeon looking at us. Makes me feel like an aquarium. ————— Closed in, to be stared at. Endings want us to open out, and not just trail off the way I usually . . . What I want is like the woman I heard of who dreamed a candle on her hospital window ledge, down to its last. The little wavering dance went out. Immediately, her vision shifted through the dark window to an outdoor, skyscraper candle lit with a strong flame. • • • 203 f r o m g o u r d s e e d Though it’s not some huge vision, not an image of anything. I won’t know what I want till I quit thinking saying it is it. The talk gets even smaller, closer to silence, then is. ...