ANOTHER

I'd hired a space for the poem. Its personnel –

The poet William Cowper, Bill Monroe, a raven –

Would arrive later. I thought Monroe, who was ornery,

Might get along with Cowper, who was mad

And also -- for no particular reason -- eternally damned.

I still think that poem might have been good

(There'd have been some slow bluegrass music 

And the raven had agreed to dance a few steps).

Then Cowper got lost on the way, ending somehow

Hunched miserably in a corner of Valhalla, and Monroe

Refused to do a poem co-starring a raven.

The raven took a rain-check and, in the end,

We used God, my grandfather, two dogs and a cat.

VISITING KAMIANKA STRUMILOVA

"In dreams," the old muse said, "your father
Visited Kamianka Stromilova
The people there grew used to him
And would just shrug as his curious ghost
Poked his long nose in everywhere.
'One of us,' they'd say. 'Strange, yes,
That he won't be born for thirty years
But unmistakably another Kamionker
So where else should he be?'
I was friends with your grandfather then
He was about 12 and unconcerned
That this oddly-dressed son from America
Was several years older than he was."

BY THE WATER

After a day swimming in the lake at Patchogue

My mother would hear her father’s car horn;

She’d climb on the running board and ride home

Clinging to the car. What model was it, I wonder;

How far did they go? Did they talk on the way?

Did she close her eyes and listen to the wind

Or did she watch the world flowing by?

How easy it would have been to ask her!

My father’s mother when she was young

Danced by some river in Galicia.

There was an emperor then: Franz-Joseph

She rather liked him. I imagine it must be something

To have an emperor. Perhaps you feel sorry for folk

In ordinary countries, who have only a king

Or the poor people who must get by

With an archduke, an elector, a president.

TOWNSMAN

If you seek his grave you’ll find it

In the wrong part of the cemetery

Not with the dead of the hometown

He never saw. His father glances

At the memory of the watch

Which lies in my dresser drawer.

His mother says “Look! It’s Natie!”

And there he is, come by starlight.