INSTRUCTIONS

If any there are who come after us

There is a large pile of clean days

In the cupboard near the stairs.

Some are new; the old ones will need  

To be scraped free of events and sewn up

Where the mice have gotten to them. 

The Sun is stowed in the attic; you'll find matches 

Next to the fireplace. There is a moon

Wrapped in paper in the pantry and another

In the barn, tucked beneath the straw.

BLOCKED

From fear of contagion, shadows

Are being kept out of hospitals,

And nursing homes. Workers 

Fight their way in through thick crowds 

Of desperate shadows who vainly 

Demand news, demand hope, demand

To be allowed to do their jobs. 

The plague will end some day but now 

Is the time to start making plans

For dealing with all the shadows 

Suddenly unemployed

PIE

Lacking my mother's recipe for apple pie

I follow my mother-in-law's, written out

In her clear running print hand on two cards

Taped together and showing the marks 

Of cinnamon and brown sugar, of lemon juice

And tart apples. My mother always 

Used greening apples if she could find them

And rolled the dough with a rolling pin

That had been her step-grandmother’s 

It was made of some densegrained wood

With handles that remembered their every user.

That pin probably could have made a pie

By itself. Not so well as my mother, mind you,

But pretty well. Most likely it wouldn't remember 

To stop mid-way and give me apple cores 

Coated with sugar brown and white and cinnamon.

MILK

On the way to his execution 

Charles I -- it's a matter of record --

Stopped the procession to get

A cup of milk, fresh from the cow.

He chatted with the milkmaid,

Paying her with a silver button 

Pulled from his embroidered shirt-cuff;

Kings, even condemned kings,

Don't usually carry money. (Their clothes 

Often lack pockets.) A servant

Carried a leather bag of coins

Which, on the scaffold, would serve

To tip the headsman .

PROGRESSION

A thrifty spirit might in time

Gather substance and one day

Wake to find himself as real

As the light on wind-touched water.

Next, he may hope that 

Home-seeking shadows, 

Lost in thought and forgetting  

They have no homes, may spare

The memory of some coin

Held heavy in a hand or even

That of a ten dollar bill

Fluttering unexpectedly from 

An envelope, falling groundward.

Be wary and lightfooted, then;

Plan and gather but spend sometimes 

As if funds were swiftmelting snow;

It may be at last at you'll have 

Memories enough to furnish 

A modest and slender man

And sufficient store to maintain

A used but serviceable reflection.

PHOTO

A cafe in Lemberg, 1904. One man

Sits there reading, I think, a newspaper

In an expanse of empty chairs and tables.

He looks at home; the chandelier and pillars

Don't impress him. The glass shelves 

Meant to hold cake are empty; perhaps

This is the owner or the owner's son, posing 

Before the cafe opens. In the street outside 

My grandfather, just turned twenty,

May be throwing a just-seen shadow, planning 

To stop later and drink coffee, acting as if

He isn't aware of unborn grandchildren

Trying to catch a glimpse of him

As usual, the drum came by today

At noon three-thirty and just before civil 

Passed into naval twilight and asked 

If I'd repented yet. My neighbors,

If I had any, could set their watches 

By his quiet compound duple beat.

Before him there was a flute and 

Before the flute a krumhorn who

Took for granted that I was unchanged

But still felt I should be reminded 

That my repentance, even though

Likely to have no effect, would, 

In certain places of authority be noted.

POST

What if your soul was a boat

And you a passenger who,

One day, is asked to join the crew 

In some odd capacity -- bos'n, say,

Or purser or third-ranker? The captain

(Did you expect they'd make you

Captain? You don't even know what

A purser does nor why he differs from 

And mortally fears the supercargo)

Nods to you, distantly. That this

Is your soul cuts no ice with him.

You're assigned a hammock near

Where the ammunition's kept

Just aft of the lateen mizzen

Surprised to find your soul carries 

Large supplies of powder and shot.

BIRDCALL

Ab initio, there were grackles

Calling to each other 

With affectionate creaks.

Admiring apes heard them

But couldn't manage

To speak as grackles do

Even when they stood

On two legs and hollered;

(Extremely hoarse men

Still don't sound like grackles)

Ages went by; hunters

Became herdsmen became 

Planters became builders

Became townsmen who

Needed gates to keep out

The hunters and herders 

And planters who'd failed 

To keep up with progress.

If you forget to oil city gates

They begin to creak and sound 

Rather like amorous grackles

Since then it's all been anticlimax.

NOTE TO AESRED

Because He couldn't bear

To disappoint my father

God put aside the question

Of whether He existed,

Acting as if He did.

He can, apparently,

Tolerate disappointing me

So has once again

Been mulling things over.

CAT'S SCHRODINGER

The hypothetical soul of Erwin Schrodinger

Was ushered into a small office by an efreet

Who had itself been recently hired. It gave him 

A mug of something brown and hot which proved 

To be a Japanese fermented honey drink.

While he was drinking, his cat slowly coalesced

In the chair next to him and sat there, unspeaking

Schrodinger's soul absentmindedly scratched the cat

(If he hadn't been distracted by his own death 

And the unfamiliar taste of alcoholic honey

He'd have reflected that souls, real or alleged,

Aren't supposed to drink or have cats or fingers)

The cat also sat at a desk, looking at a file 

Which it put aside with a sigh, saying

"A few preliminaries, Dr. Schrodinger.

This is  -- you probably realize this --

Not Heaven nor Hell nor Lua-o-milu nor, honestly,

Is it one of the otherworldly constructs 

Properly authorized to receive souls.

Neither is it one of those mushroom afterworlds

Which spring up in a day and perish in the night.

No indeed! Where you are is, in a way,

Where you've always been: in a box --

A box quite similar to the one in which

You placed me in your famous thought-experiment.

There, you'll recall, unless or until someone

Came by and actually looked in the box

My life hung upon an atomic event. As you put it:

"The cat still lives if meanwhile no atom 

Has decayed. The first atomic decay would have poisoned it. 

The psi-function of the entire system would express this 

By having in it the living and dead cat (pardon the expression) 

Mixed or smeared out in equal parts." (Be assured;

I do pardon the expression). The Authorities,

If there are any, were or would have been impressed

By your understanding of our situation but

Perplexed that you didn't know it was yours

As well as mine. We live and we don't until

Someone outside the Box thinks to check on us.

Until then, we do our best while being 

Living and dead and smeared out in equal parts.

That you're now in the same box as I am 

Makes the experiment aesthetically pleasing."

Schrodinger's apparent soul was calm 

As befitted one of the three or seven fathers

Of quantum physics though the only one of them 

Who'd had the same daughter born three times 

To three different women. He asked 

"But will Someone check? Is there a God 

Outside the universe who will reduce

All our possibilities to just one certainty?"

"Of course there is," said the cat.

"Of course there isn't," said the cat.

PAINTING

Though there are studies for it

Showing a cat being playfully throttled 

By a child of two, Leonardo's painting

Madonna and Child with a Cat

Is said to have vanished or perhaps 

To have never been made at all. 

This isn't so; the cat persuaded 

Mary and the baby to run away

Leaving behind an empty room 

Wonderfully painted. In time,

A superannuated war goddess, Belet-Seri, 

Moved in, She's put on Leonardo’s table 

A list of names left behind by shades 

Who travel the afterworld incognito.

She looks out the window at a landscape 

That turns blue as it recedes. She holds 

A tall feather -- probably a peacock's

But possibly an archangel's. The picture

Hangs in the Uffizzi labeled "Old Woman

With A Quill; School of Verrocchio."

QUANTUM

All gods are approximate 

But chtonic gods more so -- 

Always not quite here or there 

But almost. In this they are

Much like those electrons 

Which exist only if someone 

Is looking right at them or 

Remembering them fondly.

Even then, they are never 

In one place but in a vicinity.

This is why the world is filled

With the lost dreams of gods 

And of electrons.

LUCRETIUS

Two things apart
Are apart infinitely
And forever. The world
Has only one trick
(But it's a good one);
It brings together.