The Markets of Eternity
Sometimes I just want to window-shop
in the markets of eternity.
Sometimes the puzzles don’t make any sense.
My father regarded anything he could read
as an obligation, something to try his memory.
He never forgot a thing, but to get him to recite
took hours of persuasion.
Essentially he was a modest man,
not shy but unwilling to put himself forward,
unless he could ease someone’s pain.
Of course he was good with children,
which I must confess, made me jealous.
Once I stole a puff of his cigar.
Another time I sipped his dry martini
when he left it on the table near his books.
He used bookmarks made of sticky notes,
read eight or nine novels at a time.
Our house resembled a warehouse or a library.
He cooked frankfurters and beans
every Thursday night when my mother
went to the movies alone.
Together they lived in a cold, unusual dream.
Twenty Questions
Some time when the river is ice ask me
mistakes I have made.
William Stafford
Ask me why I stand before the mirror, preening in my old age.
Ask me why, even now, the sap runs as maples
leaf out in passionate rage.
Ask why so many people stumble down my road
in the morning, with wind tearing through trees.
I will offer you something to drink, coffee perhaps,
or green tea if you plan to live forever.
Maybe a glass of Chardonnay if the hour is right,
and some nuts to nibble on. You can ask me then
why I spend my day gobbling words, why I hold my terror in,
listening to the soothing symphonies I love.
Ask me, and I will feel your questions like a knife
held at my throat in some dark alley on a dangerous midnight street.
The River of What Used to Be
When your body trembles and turns
to mist, when your mother calls
again and again from a third floor window,
when girls toss their jacks in the air
and sundown crashes through the hedge,
when all that happens,
you are nailed to the past,
your mind floating on the river
of what used to be.
When birds gather in bare branches
of the river birch,
when frogs shiver by the frozen pond,
when a boat sails through fog
as cameras click, when you can’t sleep
for thinking of money and gold,
your father sends for you.
He has stern advice, a notebook
you should keep, a stack of folders
you can add to the cabinet on the floor.
When the door closes, don’t look back.
A hailstorm drives in from the east.
Windows shatter as you turn away from home.
"Let us intoxicate ourselves on ink, since we lack the nectar of the gods."
I liked these a lot.
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