A young child, a girl, dead,
Asks why I'm writing a poem
When I should be bringing her back.
Young children do not know
That anything's impossible. There will
Be ducks on the pond that she
Won't ever see. The honking geese
Won't startle or amuse her; won't
Make her clutch small hands together
And say Oh! No cricket will bring her
Good fortune; no grandchild
Ask her why cats don't have kings.
Kooser, if you look
At that poem of yours
You'll find your fan
Missing. I have it because
My poem needed it.
If you want, come by
And bring some spoons
(The ones the ghosts stole
From your aunt will do.)
The electric fan has ingrained dust
On its blades. It sometimes wakes itself
On a cold winter day and whirrs officiously.
Older even than the broiler I took to school
It has outlived so many appliances
Even the Grundig radio that, on clear nights,
Brought Canada and Wheeling, West Virginia
To suburban New York. If the old fan thinks
I need cooling when it's 14 degrees
Who on earth am I to say it's not right?
| Sun, Jan 25, 2:53 PM (3 days ago) | |||
| ||||
In the middle of a very heavy
Snowstorm there is a knock on the
Door. A god -- a small one --
Stands there, brushing off snow, and
Says "A few of us, for no good
Reason -- we gods need none
For what we do -- have been
Slowly changing your fate. You've heard
That even gods can't alter fate?
We say this because it's hard and
We're most of us lazy. Still, we have
Built you something interesting which
Begins as soon as you leave your
House with me. C'mon! I've shoveled
Your walk and hotwired your car."
In those hard times God,
Not having two nickels
To rub together, took a job
With my Grandfather Max.
He did good work but
Nothing extraordinary, saving
Miracles for His off hours.
When things got better
He quit and resumed
Being God full-time.
The angels changing shifts use ladders
To go between Earth and Heaven. You'd think
They'd fly or at least use escalators but no;
They climb up and down ladders. Worse,
There are no ladders just for going up and
None for just going down so they must
Push past each other. When an angel going off-shift
Has news for his replacement, everyone on their ladder
Waits, commending themselves on how patiently they're waiting.
