PRETENSE

Evening Crow occasionally pretends
To be Morning Crow , doing good deeds
And paying small debts — all with a grace
That Morning Crow finds intensely irritating.

MARKET

 

Outside your house, blocking traffic, angels 

Have set up a market. Very thin angels 

Have spread blankets on the ground

Holding carefully-sorted piles of leaves, bottles 

Of almost-new time, pictures of unknown celebrities 

With their arms around God's neck, chained books

That mew or murmur or growl. Stouter, 

More prosperous  angels operate booths selling 

Sno-cones and sausages and syllables

Once part of the infinite name of God.

To make up, perhaps, for the inconvenience 

Your dog, dead these many years, brings you 

A dealer's license, dropping it at your feet.

LOOK FOR THEM

Falling through infinite

Space takes infinite 

Time so that angels who

Tried to beat the rush

By starting their fall

Before they'd revolted 

May be falling still.

TO BE DETERMINED

While he makes up his mind whether 

He is Zhuang Zhu dreaming he is a butterfly

Or a butterfly dreaming he is Zhuang Zhu

He is condemned to exist or not in the box

Originally built for Schrodinger's cat.

The cat left years ago through a flaw

In Schrodinger's reasoning but the box

Remains as it was -- a handsome thing

Of dark wood and gleaming brass. Some day

The lid will be pushed back and a butterfly

Will flutter out unless Zhuang Zhu steps 

Urbanely forth, gathering his robes about him,

Surprising the scientists standing round

With catfood and shovels.

 

CHANGE

To keep in practice, God

Suddenly forgives you and

Though you've made plans

For the evening and hired 

Three extra shadows  

(One of them with wings

And a sword) you now

Must abandon them.

EDGE

In 1897 Virginia S
Was 15 and kept a journal;
On January 17 she wrote
“Found an old knife,
which I have polished
and sharpened and which
for the future
shall be my knife.”
For forty three more years
That sharp knife gleamed
And glinted and cut and
After she died (by stones
And water) the knife
Made its own way
Through this rough world.

GAME

Suppose my father a magician

Gesturing as he recites the names 

Of ballplayers long ago until

The numbers that made them 

Take on form and cast shadows:

Nine innings; three strikes;

Sixty feet and six inches more;

One hundred fifty-four games.

Twi-night, bunt, streak, box-score,

Spitball, slider, curve,

Saves, steals, sacrifices,

Change-up, pinch, relief,

Rookies (phenoms all), 

Veterans (wily, as a rule).

Dizzy, Dazzy, Daffy, Dixie, Ducky;

Big Train; the Splendid Splinter;

Larruping Lou from Columbia U. 

Frankie Frisch, the Fordham Flash.

ON THE MANTEL

Three vases of different blues;

Stone Buddha; clay Assyrian god

Who refuses to give his name;

Clock in a cloisine half-circle;

Wood Buddha sure that he

Is slightly more serene than Stone;

Two pottery chickens, one big

One small. Spool of black thread 

With a needle stuck in it, placed

High among gods and chickens 

To be out of the children's reach.

LADY SEATED AT A VIRGINALS

Keep looking at me because I know

You, painter, will die next year 

But my eyes hold you now; next year 

Needn't come or if it does enter then 

This picture; take the painted bow

Resting among the strings and

Play a song -- a quiet dance or

Something rowdy.

LIBRARIANS

Though I don't think she reads much

Baba Yaga travels with a battered

Brass-hinged steamer trunk

Filled with memoirs and romance novels,

Some of which are dedicated to her

(I find this fact disturbing).

I tell her it is eccentric to 

Make her cat her librarian 

Since the cat can't read. Neither,

She says, could Jorge Luis Borges 

During his tenure as blind Director 

Of the National Library of Argentina.

Moreover, even when he could see,

Borges didn't catch mice and owed

His appointment almost entirely to

The Great Cat Shortage of 1955.

 

COINS

It may be that my grandfather 

Was owed a favor by the God

Of Small Change. When he

Spun a coin it kept spinning

Until he stopped it. When he

Needed thirty seven cents

In each of his pockets  

Three dimes, a nickel and

Two pennies would appear.

WAITING

Seventeen Hokusai characters 

Quietly chat beside a pond; 

Waiting for the director.

Twelve men; three women; 

Two children. One man  

Watches the watching moon  

Tendrils of cloud brushing its face.

A LINK

Black and white cat 

Thinks posing on the rug

Will make me write about him

Or at least keep me from writing 

About anything less important.