The Poet at 37

The Poet at 37


I drive to work--but not every day--through construction
barriers, dumptrucks and backhoes, distracted
by what I have to say that day and to whom.
Lujan's is on the right where they make little biscuits
of molasses shaped like pigs in the local tradition. Carl's
Jr. and then I turn. A friend told me she saw a girl
get it crossing this street, described the arc, how the body
flew up onto the car, and she bounced
back onto the sidewalk. A human being, all those
intentions. I eat strange meals, often standing,
of bits of things-a cracker, an apple, a bowl of cereal,
alone. I sometimes think, this is my life and push
away the edge of despair with my hands. I think
of Moses. How he begged god for only one thing.
The god he had obeyed for years without
question-he wanted to see his face. What face
would he have? This desire is clean and pure
as a child's. Show me your face. I spend nothing
and am never extravagant. Sometimes I go to Mexico
on the Stanton Street Bridge, and for 25 cents enter diesel smoke,
bodies, vendors, well-oiled hair of street musicians,
the blind couple. She has holes for eyes and sings with
a can between her knees, the coins, percussion. He plays
a catalogue guitar and has dark glasses.
And a watch. There's a man in Juarez who paints
landscapes the size of a postage stamp, one American
dollar. See the pond, the waterfall, dense willows,
two swans, necks linked on an easel made of toothpicks?
See the elderly waiters in their Eisenhower jackets,
sentinels at Martino's plateglass window?
They wait for the sun to go down. Which always happens,
fortunately. Sometimes I climb the nearest mountain--
the bald, dry mountain, a whitewashed A on its side, an A
I can't see once I have achieved it.
There are other landscapes here of geologic interest:
the desert of white sand soft as snow, so bright
it is said astronauts navigate by it. There are quartz peaks,
purplish and severe. Sometimes wearing a skin of snow.
And new this year: I feel like there is a before and an after.
And this is the after. I read the Medievals
who believed in divine order (for comfort?). As William
of Conches put it in the tenth century,
the world is an orderly collection of creatures, and
like a great zither. A tuned instrument,
with purpose and scale. My mechanic sends me a Christmas card
reminding me to reflect on my blessings. He's right--
I have a good job, my health, and the war hasn't started yet.
One anonymous disciple of John of Fecamp asks, who
shall give us wings like those of the dove so that we may
then fly through all the kingdoms of the world
and enter within the southern sky? Show me your face.



Connie Voisine
Posted over on Campbell Corner