Henry V Prologue

Henry V Prologue
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascendThe brightest heaven of invention,A kingdom for a stage, princes to actAnd monarchs to behold the swelling scene!Then should the warlike Harry, like himself,Assume the port of Mars; and at his heels,Leash’d in like hounds, should famine, sword and fireCrouch for employment. But pardon, and gentles all,The flat unraised spirits that have daredOn this unworthy scaffold to bring forthSo great an object: can this cockpit holdThe vasty fields of France? or may we cramWithin this wooden O the very casquesThat did affright the air at Agincourt?O, pardon! since a crooked figure mayAttest in little place a million;And let us, ciphers to this great accompt,On your imaginary forces work.Suppose within the girdle of these wallsAre now confined two mighty monarchies,Whose high upreared and abutting frontsThe perilous narrow ocean parts asunder:Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts;Into a thousand parts divide on man,And make imaginary puissance;Think when we talk of horses, that you see themPrinting their proud hoofs i’ the receiving earth;For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck our kings,Carry them here and there; jumping o’er times,Turning the accomplishment of many yearsInto an hour-glass: for the which supply,Admit me Chorus to this history;Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

Pluto

Pluto
Pluto, they’re beginning to talk about you,something about losing your status as the planet farthestfrom our reluctant mother the sun.
After all those solitary years aloft, your reputationin all the books, nudged aside by some big glob of ice—so far away, where darkness is the only rule.
And who are we to pronounce your place in the cosmos,even though each of us is, in the smallest way,a dying star, far from everything we know.

Piano

Piano
I want to go homesaid the small, blond boy at the doorof his house and I knewwhat he meant, how the hearthas a different number and streetand its door opens perpetually to a manwe cannot find in these rooms,these real rooms I have painted the colorof flowers longing for this interior winter,this winter of the heart to end,these beautiful rooms and hallsa widow and her two small boys wandernot knowing what else to dolike a certain length of musicin search of a piano.

Untitled

Untitled
This morning,my father looked at me in the mirrorand said,When I was your ageI was two years dead,why complain, my son?

Lost

Lost
I push you in your chair,Bringing you back again to where I found youCurled up and alone.I remember I sat in the pew beside you.Your solitude made me uncomfortable.I stayed through the day until I was sure you were not lost butThrown away,Then wheeled you home.You flop your head.I present a shoulder.Your mouth flinches,You stare blankly,But I bring you here each day to hear them sing,To You oh Lord I lift my soul,To You I lift my soul.Your arm falls.I lift it back into your lapAnd smooth your long blond hair.You were well groomed when I found you.Someone must have loved youAnd stopped.I wash you on the bed with a towel.Your body is heavy to turn.I grind your mealsAnd push them down your throat with my fingers.I dress you, my doll.I used to put you before the TVBut your face would turn to the window like a plant to the sun.I trim your nails, your hair.I change your diapers,Your pads.For whom do you bleed?I talk to you butI don’t know who it is you hear.You are voiceless.Did you ever sing?When you look into my eyes it is becauseI have placed myself before you.Your eyes look capped,Dark frozen seas.Nothing goes in or out anymore.Did they ever really look into another’s eyes?What did they see last?What made them stop looking?I don’t know what you long for.I don’t know what you lost.I don’t know why God preserves you butTo teach me the end of love.

This Moment

This Moment
Tonight I am awake in twilight’s cool sobrietyContemplating the expanse of a momentDiscerning the octaves of silence from dreamsThis moment I am dreaming, because a woman can have many lives.
This moment a woman is pretending to sleepHer husband nuzzling her ear, his legs juxtaposed on her thighsSoft, raspy whispers of things she does not want to hearShe murmurs a tepid, “I love you,” because he expects it.
This moment a child is crying, skin bracing the cold nitrogenOf the atmosphere, that instant life enters her poresDisplacing amniotic warmth with dryness and indifferenceAnd she cries, as we all do, because it hurts.
This moment a mother is also crying, her salt flowing onto plastic veinsConducting her breath back into the dark tunnel where it all began.Morphine numbing a somber swelling in her breast, and she criesBecause time is evaporating and her thoughts are yet unfinished.
This moment a farmer is awakening, darkness precedingAn opalescent morning; the cock is crowing and his daughterMilking the cows; she moves on to the corn-studded landscape.The hoe is tough, but she ploughs onward because that is her identity.
This moment a writer is obliterating wordsElectronic letters dancing across a screen, visible and invisibleBetween intervals, inspiration mingled with fatigue, the sweatSpilling into her eyes, stinging, and she fears she may go blind.
This moment a woman is reminiscing the deadSteam swirling from the hazelnut coffee he used to makeThat she continues to drink with cream, allowing the hauntingTo occur, because the table is empty and she is alone.
This moment is memory alive, a continuous pearl on a braceletCongealed salt, sweat, and spit pressured into an imperfect sphereSituated one by one, each making possible the nextComing full circle around a woman’s wrist.

Constructing the Visible World

Constructing the Visible World
You can tell there’s ice in patches on the lakeonly because the gulls are standing on it,each on one leg to maintain body-warmth,each facing into the wind as always.Knowing it’s there you can see the icepresenting a different surface to the airlike the skin on your mug of boiled milkthat you blew into wrinkles then hooked outwith a fingertip or a crust to eat like cream.
You can tell what trees and bushes grow hereonly if you see their leaves or berriesunder them on the frost-hard ground.Out-of-season furniture, they’ve beendust-covered by honeysuckle vines,smothered into uniform hillocks of scribbleslike the Seven Sleepers hidden in their hair,or Sleeping Beauty’s castle and landsovergrown with briar roses and brambles.
You can tell what’s happened on this landonly if you can read the signs embeddedin its placid grassy face: the glacier boulderspushed to its downslope edge by backhoes;the faded pasture fence markingboundaries once made stock-proofby hedges of osage orange; the trailbetween the last two mansions to go up,where fox scat still appears from time to time.

Stump

Stump
You could say it wore a skirt of ivy flounces –still had that much self-respect,hadn’t realized it was dead yet, kept pumpingsap to the ghost of its branches
that rose like a glass dream. You couldcall it a sort of Viennese table or a messafter breakfast: spilled syrupwithout the pancakes. Or that it was the sliced off
breast of a saint — a woundwith red ants quietly nursing, andblow flies — those busy iridescent bruises –swarming in like Hells Angels
on a rumor of free beer. Orthat it was no longera plant at all, but the corpseof an animal. You could offer
that the maple might have crushedyour roof in a storm or that you had to have the lighteach morning the way a child needs a big glassof milk. Or that it was the El Niño winter
that made everything crazy,made February break into a feverand the six-legged drunks wake upfive weeks early. You could say that the stump
was a bitter fountain or maybea wild barrel of hope spillingits sweet water over the ivy frills and bark, and intothe dirt making a kind of dark batter, or
that it was glad to be drenched in its lastwet joy, as if green, or the love of green,was what it lived by.

A Letter Found

A Letter Found
A letter nearly lost – found byher daughter, amongst Cousin Patty’spapers – a letter writtenFor, but probably not byMy Romanian immigrant grandfather,Michael to his daughterSylvia on August 6, 1926
In a slanted, cursive handHe says, “Dear Sylvia, IReceived your address from IrvingAnd now I am writing toYou a letter. Write meHow you feel. andHow you are getting along asI am very anxious to know.”
He signs it, “Your father, Mr.Goldstein.So formal, cousin JoyceCalls this new, startling discovery, “theMr. Goldstein letter.” We cousinsAnd second cousins, the youngestAlive had never met him.- neverKnew him at all.
In life, a distant man – few fragmentsWe know of him – but theseWords in writing connect usTo our past.- to this ancestorWho gave me my angled jaw, long legsAnd high cheekbones – but whyDid he write this letter? WhatSorrow was he healing for myAunt? Joyce thinks the AuntHad lost a baby.- there wereOthers too.
For my grandfather, that sorrow wasDeep. There were lost children inThe family of Mr. Goldstein – a sonThey called Phillip died of diphtheria –Never mentioned – exceptIn an interview I tapedWith an Uncle. “You’veForgotten something,” Aunt VeraSaid, “there was a son namedPhillip whenThey lived in Albany.”
And there were lost grandchildrenFor Mr. Goldstein. too – RachelWith soft curls – I’ve seen herIn a photo –andGloria who rolled off a bed and…
Death had taken children andGrandchildren from the OldRomanian – near to deathHimself – there was sadnessHidden in the letter – inThe voice I had never heard.

“Who wants to be poor?” I ask, and

Who wants....

“Who wants to be poor?” I ask, andno one raises their hand –“Or middle class?” and nearlyevery student nods – except fortwo. “Why middle class?”And Brian says, “That’s how you find love –You need to have money.” Jason whoRarely speaks mutters, “I’m tired ofLiving paycheck to paycheck.” I push on. “And rich?Who wants to be rich?” The two unspoken put their hands up,Into the air. “And how will you achieve this?”“By finishing school and working hard.” Scott speaksin a low voice, as if he were embarrassed to yearn forRiches.
“Wait!” Eric calls out – his face lined withconflict. “Can I be both rich and middle class?”He has already chosen the middle class, but looksAt me, imploringly, as if I were a Greek oracle, deciding hisFate; and even before I can find an answer, EricCrashes his fist on the edge of the chair, “No!”He shouts, determined, “I’m tired ofBeing a spoiled brat – I’ll be middle-class!”And the students cheer

“Who wants to be poor?” I ask, and

Who wants....
“Who wants to be poor?” I ask, andno one raises their hand –“Or middle class?” and nearlyevery student nods – except fortwo. “Why middle class?”And Brian says, “That’s how you find love –You need to have money.” Jason whoRarely speaks mutters, “I’m tired ofLiving paycheck to paycheck.” I push on. “And rich?Who wants to be rich?” The two unspoken put their hands up,Into the air. “And how will you achieve this?”“By finishing school and working hard.” Scott speaksin a low voice, as if he were embarrassed to yearn forRiches.
“Wait!” Eric calls out – his face lined withconflict. “Can I be both rich and middle class?”He has already chosen the middle class, but looksAt me, imploringly, as if I were a Greek oracle, deciding hisFate; and even before I can find an answer, EricCrashes his fist on the edge of the chair, “No!”He shouts, determined, “I’m tired ofBeing a spoiled brat – I’ll be middle-class!”And the students cheer

The Mountain is Holding Out

The Mountain is Holding Out


The mountain is holding out
for news from the sea
of the raid on the redoubt.
The plain won’t level with me

for news from the sea
is harder and harder to find.
The plain won’t level with me
now it’s non-aligned

and harder and harder to find.
The forest won’t fill me in
now it, too, is non-aligned
and its patience wearing thin.

The forest won’t fill me in
nor the lake confess
to its patience wearing thin.
I’d no more try to guess

why the lake might confess
to a regard for its own sheen,
no more try to guess
why the river won’t come clean

on its regard for its own sheen
than why you and I’ve faced off across a ditch.
For the river not coming clean
is only one of the issues on which

you and I’ve faced off across a ditch
and the raid on the redoubt
only one of the issues on which
the mountain is holding out.

Water Drops of Me

Water Drops of Me
The water clings to the bladesas surely as I've stuck to you.Gather all of the droplets togetherand you'll receive onlya much larger puddle.Assemble the pieces of meand find something much different.Take our combined memoriesand call them a life. The grassonly holds so many mysteries.

A Shadow

A Shadow
I reach for somethingthat doesn't exist.Even though it seemslike I've got it,I'm eluded once again.Maybe I wasn't meantto capture that moment.Maybe that moment and youdon't really exist.It wouldn't be life, though,if we didn't try.

Dying Bubbles

Dying Bubbles
A fine crochet or tatted lace--stitches fade with age.The shawl, once beautifulin its delicacy, disintegratesinto nothingness.