I rarely walk beyond that tree
That is home to birds —
And air — too close
To the undermined
Riverbank.
I’ve tried holding
The tree — hands uncertain—
Taking a step —only one —
A test of courage —
A test of foolishness.
Even at flood height
The water invites —
And seems — at times —
To flow in reverse — back
Up between its banks —
I follow from here.
As a child, in times of transition,
moving in, away, or up a class,
I’d choose a spot of no distinction,
eaves elbow or dirty pane of glass,
seen daily, in passing, from bus or car,
and call that spot up to memory,
my own version of a wishing star,
proof not everything is temporary.
Solemnly naming the spot my own,
commanding it, above all worthier
bits of the universe, to stand alone,
I’d whisper, If I do not remember
this spot the next time I go this way,
even if I remember some other time,
all that I have seen and done today,
and this spot, will no longer be mine.
So many years later, I still attempt
to make of humble, unnoticed things
what they do not seem, to exempt
the passing car or the cardinal’s wings
from the wrist watch’s oblivious tick.
But now the simile and the metaphor
so complicate things that when I pick
a spot that should mean no more
than what it is, like a broken sidewalk
or tree stump—you see what I mean—
the thing comes alive, begins to talk,
turns to words on a computer screen.
My parents and six siblings and I lived in this house on Sr.
Officers Row at Warren Air Force Base. My dad was a colonel.
The house in dreams is always the same,
Though its rooms, like lungs, bulge and contract
And sometimes the rain
Bends ceilings and bursts through in cataracts,
Frightening as spitting your teeth down the drain.
Dad’s gone, and that house will never be the same.
The old trees, too, are still the same.
We rake and burn leaves in the driveway
And recall legendary Claire,
Who caught fire leaping on a dare, they say,
Whose ghost still turns on the faucet upstairs.
Mom’s gone, and that house will never be the same.
The stairway in the front hall is the same.
I find my mail stacked on the newel post,
Though I don’t live here.
Though I am still alive, I am a ghost
The others cannot touch or see or hear.
Dad’s gone, and that house will never be the same.
The ways we use each room are still the same,
But the television is black and white
And the kitchen is a mess.
We feel no urgency, no physical delight
In being where there is no light, no darkness.
Mom’s gone, and that house will never be the same.
The river runs through our backyard just the same.
Memories of trysts and laughter, beneath the willows,
Though vivid, never intrude.
The river is a dark chalice threatening to overflow,
Or frozen as stone, dead, supine, nude.
Dad’s gone, and that house will never be the same.
My bedroom and closet still seem the same.
While the window no longer looks out on the trains
On the trestle beneath the moon,
The closet door mirror no longer refrains
From showing me what has come only too soon.
Mom’s gone, and that house will never be the same.
The attic and the basement are both the same.
We hide in one or the other with our fear—
Of life, or of death—
The attic when all that we hold dear
Disappears; in the basement holding our breath.
They’re gone, and that house will never be the same.
A dreamed-of tern feathered bright tin,
With feet of forks and spoons, and eyes
Of rapidly blinking buttons
Flapping in a nacreous sky . . .
So briefly, yet half-remembered.
Is it different than sand hill cranes
Flying tight skeins, or tiny birds
Fighting at your feeder, insane,
Almost: hungry, or is it greed?
All is constructed by what feeds
The integers of counting we’s,
Assembled — one, one — instantly,
As we try to comprehend dreams —
And all else— as more than just seen.
How many remember so much?
I’ve read for some it’s a burden,
That not a thought or word or touch
Is lost, faded or uncertain.
All comes back clear and unbidden,
A constant stream of images
It is prayed might remain hidden.
No, such a past never ages.
The old yew tree in my back yard,
Subsiding, has dug a sinkhole,
Its roots drawing earth to branches.
I fill it in with sand —it’s hard—
I don’t want to choke the tree’s bole
Just to slow small avalanches.
I turn away from this —
The moment I won’t miss —
Bowed beneath the aegis
Of the blood's next beat,
Which will never repeat.
Every blink is a defeat.
The number of dates
Ever proliferates.
Each, pinned down, waits
Until all are done —
One and one and one.
We wake and sleep and wake
Without the slightest break
In the dropped mirror
Of each memory’s error.
I remember tomorrow,
Waves of it, row on row,
Just within my reach
On this particulate beach
That myriad suns bleach.
I slept as the doorbell rang.
When I rose they were gone.
A sweet earworm sang and sang.
Was it really no one?
The day raced by as days will,
A bullet from a rubber gun
With only duration to kill.
If I can’t remember dreams,
What I forget of life are dreams until
Remembered (when they seem
Like hammers and bangs).
But most often they gleam
Afar — frozen gilded boomerangs.
Forgetting is memory erosion,
As though sand is being drawn
From a beach by high ocean
Waves. It returns like fall dawn,
Each day a bit dimmer,
But never completely gone.
I am not a strong swimmer
And fear the undertow
More than the shark’s shimmer
Coming at me from below.
I think him an old emotion
I still, but vaguely, know —
Toothless, a dying pet’s devotion.
“Flying carpet” might be more apt,
Fleeing, unreachable, rapt.
Not magical, but uncanny,
Not even real, epiphany
Without a point because it is
Not up to analysis.
We’re given only a number —
How many can’t be counted, known —
(Fraying threads, fabric unsewn).
“I’m certain that I remember,”
I say. The carpet flaps. I fall.
Can I recall one thing at all?
The memories that I most fear
Are those I hope to lose next year.
My book of the first 200 of these sonnets is now available for purchase. Click here: My Human Disguise.
