SURVIVOR

 

This is possibly the worst scarecrow 

In the entire world:

An old hat and some ragged pants

Hanging on a cross with a long stick

Leaning purposelessly next to it. 

The farmwife throws up her arms

Telling the scarecrow it's all

A matter of attitude.

ATLAS

 

One day the authorities come by, saying

You've been selected to carry the world;

Atlas is forgiven at last and while they've nothing

Against you they've nothing for you either.

You protest, saying isn't Atlas huge, a very giant

And strong as a mountain? A common misperception

They say. He's actually small and frail;

A pipsqueak any wind could carry off. No one

Has the strength to carry the weight of the world. 

Atlas did it for the same reason you will: 

We're telling you to.

EDITOR

 

I've been trying to write a poem

About the Death of Dido but my tablet,

Having no respect for the classics,

Keeps  changing it to the Death of Fido

Which would be a different thing entirely.

AN ENCOUNTER

 

A stone in the middle of a sidewalk square

About an inch and a third long by three quarters

Of an inch wide. A little scuffed; if a rock

Can lead a hard life this one has. I pick it up

Of course -- I've been picking up rocks for most

Of my life. When I was a kid I'd bang them open

With a bigger rock not because I'd the makings

Of a geologist but to see the inside and to smell

The gunpowder smell two rocks pounded together make.

A grey stone, flat on one side, rounded on the other.

It can't have been on the sidewalk long; someone

Would have kicked it into the grass or the street.

Waiting for me, then. The round side fits

Into the hollow of my fingers, the flat accepts

My thumb rubbing it. A worry stone, perhaps.

I put it in my pocket. It may be that this stone

Was meant not for me but for Rebbe Aaron

My ancestor who was kept from floating off

By the stones in his pocket . He died in 1772 

But stones, notoriously, have only hazy notions of time.

FAMILY

 

Once in a while I write a poem about

My ancestor Aaron of Karlin who could,

According to legend, fly or at least float and who

Might have drifted who knows where if his wife

Hadn't put stones in his pocket. Recently,

I've become more interested in his wife who,

Like me, her descendant, couldn't fly

Or if she could didn't make a fuss about it.

DESCENT

 

About my  ancestor Reb Aaron tradition and my mother

Agree: he could fly. Nothing fancy, mind you;

He wasn't a show off and didn't do Immelmans

Or Figure-8s in the skies over Karlin. Mostly he floated

Just a bit off the ground, rising higher when he prayed

Or was lost in thought. His wife (who was also

My ancestor, come to think ofit) would slip rocks

Into his pockets so he wouldn't float away entirely.

STONES AND THE RIVER SCOUSE

 

When Virginia Woolf had had enough of being Virginia Woolf she

Put stones into her pocket (quare: pocket or pockets?

How many stones?) and went into the River Scouse

(Thirty-five miles long; considerably polluted now

But probably less so on March 28, 1941)

If you had to guess would you say she walked, dove

Or jumped headlong into the Scouse?

Or did she spin around, looking at the world 

(Just then, just there) so she could describe it if it fortuned

That she survived? And tell me something

About those stones -- smooth river-rocks do you think

Picked up idly and then inspiring the thought

"These would do nicely if I wanted to drown"?

Whatever became of those stones? Do they sit

In a vitrine somewhere, next to the bezoars?

"Stones found in a dead writer's pocket; stones

Recovered from the belly of a toad."