Later some said
You’d all along been practicing for dead
But I believe it wasn’t in you
To practice something you already knew;
You, far more wise,
Were already plotting your rise.
Ariel
Reply
When you’d died
When you’d died
and they’d taken you away
and burnt you next day
all we were left with
was your whole life
packed in between the walls
nothing thrown away
nothing recycled
everything jumbled
interconnected
inextricable
a path through it
doors that opened or shut
boxes drawers cupboards
dressers trunks folders
presses shelves
garages attics
I’d think I knew you
revolvers
cast-iron pans
bank statements
photos in cigar boxes
notebook lists of anecdotes
from the presidents’ lives
then find another thing
jar full of beard trimmings
secret mailorder magazines
bag of your own teeth
ticked list with the dates
of every half- or quarter-cigarette
you’d smoked recently
which were smoked with Larry
boxes of paperbags
medals bills
diagnoses
draft wills
that letter that ashtray
that hint of a romance
or was it nothing at all
in the end
all that was possible
was to just invent you
and say I’d known
that man
No story
There were never two men named Charles
in spite of what they both said
there were never two wives of two men named Charles.
There weren’t four children of two wives of two
men named Charles, and they didn’t
have eight pets, and forget about everything
you think you know,
nobody ever gave them sixteen names
thirty-two Christmas presents
or sixty-four walks around the park.
None of that ever happened.
Used to be
then as maybe now
every day came
with a purpose
you just had to wait
with an open pocket
it’d slip something in—
a book of poems
a tails-up coin
a bottlecap
printed inside
with a riddle
something;
one day followed
the one before
they were
all in a row
but each one
unexpected
like dominoes set
just so
far apart
if one fell
it was the only
casualty;
all together
small multiples of life
each ending
with a death
each beginning with
a birth.
That morning you had reassured me
(after Yosa Buson)
That morning you had reassured me
before we said goodbye.
At evening my heart was in a thousand pieces
and the pieces scattered.
Thinking of you, I wandered.
The world had been so full of you
it didn’t occur to me to wonder
that the hills themselves were in mourning:
Pathfinder in shade, prairie stars white in sun –
and no one to look at them.
I heard a pheasant calling and calling
fervently.
Crossing the river, I thought:
once you lived on the other side.
You left in the evening,
at morning my heart was still,
my heart that you had steadied,
in a thousand pieces.
Ghostly smoke rises a little before
the north wind that blows it away
across the deadgrass fields,
through the winter-stripped coppices.
Once you lived across the river;
You were everywhere, like smoke,
like memory, so when you are gone,
who can I be, stripped of a past?
I stripped dead leaves from branches
wove a hut to sit in
sat there alone all day
and long into the invaluable evening.
Blackbird settles
Blackbird settles
on the topmost bough
and the whole tree nods
as if to say,
I see. I see how it is.
Kung said something wise
Kung had a saying
about true wisdom —
how did it go exactly?
Something about the wise man
needing only a few words…
But I forgot to turn down the page,
and — his Collected Works,
such a big book!
At least you died beloved
At least you died beloved
Though surrounded by snow
And after the slow twilight
Had gathered and then gone.
Not how you thought to go,
Maybe, when you were young
And winter a long way off,
Before anything was known.
Couldn’t the end have come
One day in summer?
One perfect day
That would be like living always?
A field of flowers, warm sun,
Your loved ones gathered round
And after one bird’s wistful song
No pain, and no good-byes unsaid?
I harbor no regrets for you.
You were our perfect day,
He your warm sun, and we
Your field of flowers.
Christmas Season Ending Earlier, Say Scientists
The interminable United States holiday season, long considered a key indicator that the climate is doing just fine, thank you very much, may be ending earlier than we think. “The data shows that the Christmas season in the U.S. is actually ending earlier, and that the rate of change has accelerated over at least the past ten years,” said Harvard climatologist Dr. Noelle Baker-Taylor. Her team’s findings will be published in the next issue of Nature.
While those findings are likely to be controversial, they are based on solid science, says Baker-Taylor. “If you look at previous studies, they tended to rely on measurements of the entire holiday season, which show that the absolute length of the season has remained stable. But our analysis shows that the Christmas season now begins much earlier, too.” Baker-Taylor says that another possible factor is that Thanksgiving, which has traditionally demarcated the “no-earlier-than” date of the Christmas season, may have have deteriorated significantly. “There’s evidence that Thanksgiving’s influence has been steadily eroding since the 1980s, and in some areas it may no longer be enough to delay the start of Christmas.” Asked if Thanksgiving could be in danger of collapsing, Baker-Taylor said, “It’s a concern, definitely. That’s one of the things we need to look at.”
“I’m not a scientist, but my opinion is it’s bullshit,” said Oregon tree farmer Kenny Bupkis. “I mean, according to science, a bumblebee can’t even fly. So they have their opinions, but I have mine.” But Kenny’s sister and business partner Doris Bupkis wasn’t so sure. “I go downtown and I see Valentine’s day stuff in the windows in early January. So yeah, maybe. I don’t know. I’m not a scientist. After I left home, Mom used to keep her tree up till Easter some years. She just called me up the other day and asked me to haul her tree for her so she could put up her Presidents’ Day decorations. So maybe, I don’t know. I’m not a scientist.”
U.S. President Donald Trump disputed the study in an angry early-morning tweet: “So-called scientists must stop their War on Christmas! FACT: Even Darwin said global warming wasn’t real! SAD!”
The Museum Elephants
Within the murmurous expanse
Beneath the bas-relief-ringed dome
The taxidermied elephants
Reign over their eternal home:
With tiles for the grass-giving earth;
For sun-burnt destinations, walls.
Eight times a week, the monkey mirth
Of school groups echoes through the halls
While in and out the galleries
Architectonically discrete
The docents’ high-toned rhapsodies
Contend with sounds of scuffling feet.
And once a month someone comes in
Brushes the dust from wrinkled skin
Sweeps cobwebs from the painted skies
And polishes the glittering eyes.
Bag of Anything 