Page 23 - WTP Vol. XII #2

Despite that smile, there’s much he’ll never forget, like his brother done in by a sniper, among countless other horrors of which he never speaks in any detail.
A monument stands in the square by the jail, perhaps a tribute to some singer or painter or actor once hailed and now forgotten; or to a battlefield triumph, also forgotten; or maybe to a workers’ paradise, unachieved.
There are snow-over café tables in the background of the statue and prison. I can just make them out through an enfilade of plane trees whose foliage has been blown off by shelling.
The naked trees chill me. I may never see my friend again.
Of course, such a concern is nothing compared to his memories of pain and grief. I suspect my de- spair is amplified by how flawless an emblem those plane trees are of a general human devastation.
For the Birds May 25, 2023
Four or five black-capped chickadees, three goldfinches, and one stunning indigo bunting were small jewels adorning our feeder this morning. Songbirds usually make a pleasant part of my life as a bourgeois retiree, but for whatever reason I found myself dwelling instead on great cit- ies in convulsion three years ago on this very day, when another African American was needlessly killed by police, this time in Minneapolis. Of course, whatever the national uproar that caused, there have been many other kindred horrors since, like the recent strangling homicide of a home- less, mentally-ill African-American man on a New York subway. Yes, too many.
I felt like screaming in 2020 when George Floyd was murdered by the cops, and I felt that same urge this morning, even though I mourn my beloved late brother-in-law, a policeman. Here I sat in our kitchen, watching those fragile, winged creatures and a pair of newborn chipmunks—blond as 50s starlets—crowding the turf below for spilled seed. What a colorful mix! But there’s that pic- ture of an officer kneeling on his victim’s neck. After an unconscionable spell, that officer gets up. By now the man on the ground is graveyard dead.
Earlier in the morning, I’d entered something by John Dewey into my journal: The local is the only universal; upon that all art builds. I’d recently sold my sixteenth book of poetry, whose contents persistently referred to the woods and waters of northernmost New England. Certain urbane friends (and several foes, I suppose, if they bother) imagine that nothing important ever happens up this way. Now I could point to a great thinker who stood in my corner. The acceptance of my new book was, of course, gratifying, even if each one after my first in 1978 evokes less exhilaration than the last. And there were more pressing matters on my mind.
I can easily summon the day when the letter accepting my debut collection arrived. I’d arranged to meet up with a close friend who had always encouraged my efforts as a poet. His older son was about the same age as my son, an only child back then. We’d be heading to a nearby college town to watch the first Superman movie. Stepping into their house, I erupted with excitement, the way one does over any transformative experience, which was just how I understood this development. I’d felt a similar though a good deal less intense elation when my first New Yorker poem was taken in 1975. These things, I felt sure, were bound to be life changing.
I very soon had an inkling, however, that my life, never mind anything larger, wouldn’t be al- tered much after I became an author with portfolio. For us two adults to share our gusto may have taken all of 60 seconds, but my son turned to me and complained, “Can we cut the poetry and get to Superman?” My friend’s son echoed him: “Yeah!” We grownups chuckled knowingly and made for the show.
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