My poems, & saw the Ozarks—

Hills full of shifting, tethered mists & a flower

That turned whole meadows white

Against the anxious hint of leaves—& when

Some of my audience walked out because I read a poem

With two obscene words, I was delighted!

For in the North, obscenities are quaint.

That year, I taught one child how to hear

Hexameters in English, & she

Stopped crying about things she could do

Nothing to change. That year,

Because I play no instrument, I met

Many musicians—they spoke to me, mostly,

Of poetry, & I told them

How, if one doesn't have much time, rhyme

And a strong refrain line ought to

Govern everything—especially if one finds himself

In a republic determined to stay young

At any cost. Something new,

I reminded them, would come, even from their fatigue

After closing. Twice, my son

Came to visit me.

And I showed him two caves in Missouri.

Mark Twain, as a child, had played in one of them.

The cave, our tour guide said, was

Over one hundred million years old. My son

Loved it—even though it is lighted,

Now, throughout, & I kept wishing that the cave

Were darker, or that I was younger.

There was nothing I could do

About either, & the blonde girl

Showing it to us knew all her lines

“By heart.” Almost pretty, but she looked as if

Nothing in the world could make her laugh.

She & her children will, I'm sure, inherit this earth.

My son is four, & curious.

That year, I had to explain

My father's death to him, & also

The idea of heaven, & how

One got there, physically, after death. Therefore,

I had to lie for the first time

To my son, & therefore I had to give him up

A little more.

And though my wife & I spoke of reconciliation,

The snows came down with their ancient,

Cruel jokes, & each one

Was just as funny. Just as cruel.

We both felt stronger, after hearing

Them, & I went on

Living in my decaying neighborhood with the finch,

The elm, the spider, & the mouse,

And, if they could speak,

Each one spoke to me of its lowly position,

Its pathetic marriage, its doomed romance, & how

Much it hated the village—

And each one had different problems, different desires!

That year, the moon looked, each dawn,

Like a jilted suitor, a boy with an ashen face,

Sitting alone in the pool hall.

My neighbors & the townspeople avoided me,

But with the respect or courtesy

One shows for something

Misunderstood, passing, perhaps dangerous

To the education of their children—

But still a fact, like the woods sloping down

Behind an abandoned row of houses

Condemned by the new highway commissioner: bird calls,

The gray smoke of a tramp's fire,

A place where the fox we surprised, once, moved

Too quickly for human description,

And too quietly.

*

“…No,

That year, I wore black,

And a headband flecked with crimson & meant

To terrify anyone in a gang of youths