And So We Go Alone

A poem in blank verse.

In mists of calm I remember dinner conclave gatherings where

Our nuclear family fought to fold the day’s events onto our

Floating isolate home. There you sat in your high-backed chair

Explaining how our worlds worked and where wisdom lay.

Innocents Aboard, we clung to our gunnels and swept up

What could only be the vision of an elder of the highest calling.

Worshipful, we sureties purchased against an unknown future

Listened to our father tell us the holy truth of the whole wide world.

Soon our knowledge clashed and too soon our holy icon showed

His feet were made of earthen source and ready to be questioned.

Then came stormy days and fiery nights, never again the idyll glowed.

Sides were picked for verbal dodgeball and hidden bruises beckoned.

Though waves have tossed the ship we never cease to steer our craft

And though the master has lost his place, there is left in his place

A generous fraternal crafting which walks the after-deck with warm weather-eye

And perhaps will call a sighting of that, our farthest shore.

Oh Captain, my captain.  Why do you vex me so? I know that harbored

Hatreds never fill my sails and yet I blow to the fabric and hope to

Make this barque move ahead. I slave up these holystoned decks and cast

Withered glance to where your tread once marked my mind’s daily worry.

But now we must master the craft. Hatreds and wistful worry won’t carry.

I pull my daily fear into a moment’s peace and let the regretful accusations fly away.

In this moment will we steer to our future, without you.

Father, you took us this far. We, the sons of the man will take it from here.

S.A.M. Tanner

June 2013

Today, noon, a young macho friendly waiter and three diners,
               business types—two males, one female—
are in a quandary about the name of the duck paddling
               Otter Creek,
the duck being brown, but too large to be a female mallard.
               They really want to know, and I'm the human-watcher behind the nook
               of my table,
camouflaged by my stillness and nonchalant plumage.
               They really want to know.
This sighting I record in the back of my Field Guide to People.

GREG DELANTY

To enrich the earth I have sowed clover and grass
to grow and die. I have plowed in the seeds
of winter grains and of various legumes,
their growth to be plowed in to enrich the earth.
I have stirred into the ground the offal
and the decay of the growth of past seasons
and so mended the earth and made its yield increase.
All this serves the dark. I am slowly falling
into the fund of things. And yet to serve the earth,
not knowing what I serve, gives a wideness
and a delight to the air, and my days
do not wholly pass. It is the mind's service,
for when the will fails so do the hands
and one lives at the expense of life.
After death, willing or not, the body serves,
entering the earth. And so what was heaviest
and most mute is at last raised up into song.

WENDELL BERRY

At Blackwater Pond

At Blackwater Pond the tossed waters have settled

after a night of rain.

I dip my cupped hands. I drink

a long time. It tastes

like stone, leaves, fire. It falls cold

into my body, waking the bones. I hear them

deep inside me, whispering

oh what is that beautiful thing

that just happened?

Mary Oliver

The song I have come to sing

remains unsung to this day.

I have spent my life

stringing and unstringing

my instrument.

Tagore

Now I wish I were asleep, to see my dreams taking place
I wish I were more awake
I wish a sweet rush of tears to my eyes
Wish a nose like an eagle
I wish blue sky in the afternoon
Bigger windows, & a panorama—light, buildings & people in street air
Wish my teeth were white and sparkled
Wish my legs were not where they are—where they are
I wish the days warmly cool & clothes I like to be inside of
Wish I were walking around in Chelsea (NY) & it was 5:15 a.m., the
           sun coming up, alone, you asleep at home
I wish red rage came easier
I wish death, but not just now
I wish I were driving alone across America in a gold Cadillac
           toward California, & my best friend
I wish I were in love, & you here

TED BERRIGAN