God, who knows everything, still wonders
If the servant girl in the Haarlemkirch
Really likes the stories He tells her or
Is it just an excuse to sit for a while?
"I'd have finished my errands sooner, Ma'am,
But you know how God loves to talk!"
Also, when that tall waitress
In the Sakai-ya Teahouse suddenly stands
Quite still, staring into space, one hand raised
And the other hidden in her sleeve--
What is she thinking about?
Such a wind! A samurai loses his footing
And goes rolling down the street
Still clutching his swords. A pedestrian,
As if used to such things, ignores him.
He looks at the sky, trying to read
Words torn from their poems
Making a long and mapless journey.
After leaving my grandfather's manufactory, God
Wandered for a long while, stopping now and then
To make money for the next stage of His journey;
When all else failed He'd find work as a scarecrow
So when I went looking for Him I talked to scarecrows
Who'd left their fields for life in the City.
They said God had excelled at scaring crows but at last
Had changed sides and, rising into the air on black wings,
Zig-zagged towards the west, cawing harshly.
The one of my grandfather Joe's generation
You'd think I'd be likely to not remember
Would be Solomon-called-Sam
Who died at 13 in 1901 when Joe was 7 but
He insists upon himself as a fact, arguing
That since his four brothers
And two sisters are now long dead
He has an equal right to appear in family poems
Or dreams -- small roles usually and often
Simply as part of a crowd. No, it's Pinney,
Colorless and quiet and kind
Whom I actually knew whom I usually forget
(If he were one of Disney's dwarfs he'd be Bashful)
I have tried to write of him but every time
Some other relations hijack the poem.
Two donors on the base
Venerate
What appears to be
A pot
Overflowing with vegetation
Locking the door and hiding under blankets does no good;
The poem that almost blew her down in the street
Pounds on the walls and slams itself against the windows
"Go away!" she shouts, "I have too many words in my house already
As well as two cats and three shelves full of shoes --
Be as loud as you want! I can give you no attention."
My grandfather Joe worked up lather
From a bar of rough soap and shaved
With a straight razor, his hand
Unnervingly steady. The razor was kept sharp
With a strop, not a stone. If there was something
Joe needed to think hard about he'd shave
With his eyes closed, trusting his hand
To know what it was doing.
Surrounded on every side by a story
She sips her tea, apparently content
To be mistaken for an illustration.
My Great-Uncle Arnie was
Loathsome but so rich that
His shadow had a shadow
Of its own -- a poor thing who
Could never get her timing
Right, stretching out at
Noon and shrinking so as
To be almost invisible
And a trip-hazard when
The Sun was going down. It went
Missing at my Aunt Tamara's
Wedding and was finally found
Sleeping in a heavy lead-crystal
Bowl that was meant to be
Almost impossible to store.
Gustave Flaubert paid so much attention to punctuation that
His commas and periods developed free will.
Those not trapped in books when he died
Nor in his interminable letters fled through loose-shuttered windows
And are still at large. They live cautiously, taking small jobs;
Never staying long. For a few weeks one of my poems
Enjoyed a small degree of perfection, hosting a comma
Flaubert had put in and removed no fewer than three times
In a near-final draft of Bouvard and Pécuchet
Due to a misunderstanding, a print of the actor
Ichikawa Danjûrô II has lately been hung beside
A painting of St. Justina who is Patron of Padua
And stands in for St. Mark when Mark takes time off
From being Patron of Venice. As per her contract
Justina is shown as a peerlessly beautiful blonde
With a long sword transfixing her breast.
After weeks the second Danjûrô -- not a timid man --
Breaks the silence between them and asks
"What master stabbed you right through the body
Without leaving a single trace of blood?"
"I've wondered about that too," she answers;
"He looked a very ordinary man."
