From courtesy we call him the god of the road
But his remit only runs for two blocks plus
Six houses and a tree or two on the next.
It pleases us to see him making his rounds
Picking up trash and delivering answers
To last week's prayers. Often enough
He leaves them with the wrong people.
In an experimental program Zetacorp (tm)
Will be answering prayers in selected parts
Of the tri-state area. If your answer arrives
Damaged or mis-sized or you're the sort
Who prays for things you don't really want
There will be a two week return period.
Zetacorp (tm) takes no responsibility
For the condition or mood of returned prayers
So if they snarl, bite or creep you out
With their sad little faces it's not on us.
There is another Salome, said
To be Mary's sister or cousin or aunt.
She turns up to help mourn for Jesus. Not,
It's insisted, the same as the Salome
Often pictured either dancing or
Looking --quite tenderly at times --
At St. John's head on a platter;
Still, of course, she was. It happens
Frequently. Young, you dance naked
And demand the heads of those
Who don't love you. Older, you become
A useful person to have around
At childbirths and sickbeds; the sort
Who remembers to bring a bit of myrrh --
So comforting! -- to a crucifixion.
Barry Gifford said there are
No birds in Hell. Plainly
He’s never been there
Around 3 o’clock
On a Friday afternoon.
When my Aunt Edith, still a baby, suddenly died
Her shadow remained behind. Her family, never ones
To make a fuss of things even when they probably should have,
Went on as if there was nothing strange about a shadow
With no person attached.
The problem with sitting for a portrait by Rembrandt
Was that if you didn't have a soul he'd make you one
From whatever was at hand -- a half-dead flower, say
Or a kitten's shadow and a handful of spoons.
They were wonderful souls but inconvenient
And hard to grow used to. They never wore out;
Turning up even now, looking across a canal
Or examining light falling on a piece of brocade
I'm no Christian but I've seen
Many Annunciations -- hundreds of them;
Maybe thousands. Mary is rarely the same
Her hair is red or yellow or brown or black;
Curly, straight, braided, pinned,
Covered by a plain cloth, elaborately turbaned
She is surprised, frightened, bored, submissive,
Patient, impatient, worried, serene;
Keeps on reading or puts her book aside
(Marking her place with a flower,
A leaf, a finger or -- at least once --
A pair of shears.) Sometimes she's gardening
Or cleaning or daydreaming. She sits, she stands,
She kneels to the angel who kneels also
Or doesn't. The angel is alone or has brought
A companion or two or entire hosts of angels
With discrete wings or huge ones, white
Or falcon-striped or bright enough
To embarrass a peacock. They stand
Wrapped in silence or play instruments
And dance in the sky. The announcing angel
Approaches humbly, arrogantly, gravely,
Or with the jaunty air of a favored suitor.
Now, though, comes something different --
A silent angel, poking before him a document
Triple-signed and notarized -- some sort of contract
Or decree. I was a lawyer so I know something
About notaries -- a precise and prickly lot
Who delight in procedural niceties. Where, then
Did the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost
Find IDs to show the notary? Were difficulties made
About Christ's age? ("Yes, I understand--
Co-extensive with the universe -- but when,
Exactly, were You born? Some time next winter?
.... So. So. So. Ah! Can I speak for a moment
With Your Father?")
All I need do is to cook eggs in a pan
Whose handle sticks out from the stove
Instantly, my mother's ghost is there, telling me
Not to be so careless. On Thursdays
Admission to the Cleveland Museum is free;
Ghosts pay half-price so I invite her
To visit her friend Girl Who Has Been Angry
For Three Thousand Years. The Museum
Calls her "Ancient Figurine of a Woman
Or Goddess, possibly of Vinca origin"
But that's not her name. They're wary of her;
She once bit some docents trying to stop her
From distributing union literature to other statues.
I am a highly naturalistic depiction
Of a goldfinch who, for no good reason,
Perches on the hand of a Byzantine Madonna.
Neither she nor her stiffly painted son
Can figure me out or predict the moment
I'll fly off. Though her wonderful blue robe
Is filled with slowfalling stars the donors --
Two tiny men, one in red, one in black --
Stare at me, willing me to stay.
Before time begins, Time reaching way back,
Kicks his foot high over his head as if
He was Juan Marichal having a good day
At Candlestick Park. Whipping his hand forward,
Walloping his foot down, his hard throw
Sends God tummulting through space
Desperately creating itself ahead of Him.
Barry Gifford said there are
No birds in Hell. Plainly
He’s never been there
Around 3 o’clock
On a Friday afternoon.
My green Buddha, who is almost
Five-eighths of an inch tall, is considering
Taking the place of his 180 foot tall brother
Who was destroyed in 2001.
"I will sit up very straight," he says.
Abundance left hastily,
Rolling off in her chariot
Just before she could be arrested.
An old peasant woman
Plods along, quietly cursing
Every stone in the road.
She carries Abundance's luggage --
A bundle, balanced on her head,
And a small basket.
Although he's politely translated the Ten Commandments
Into Dutch only one person -- a woman
Holding a tureen the same green shade
As her blouse -- is glancing at them. Otherwise,
The huge crowd is dreaming,
Chatting, joking, balancing vases
On their heads or looking out at us
Thinking "Well, you're not reading the words either,
Are you?" Also, a quiet satyr has slipped in
Wearing a laurel wreath in his hair.
For Rembrandt's engraving of Death
Rising From The Grave To Greet
A Newlywed Couple, Death posed
For almost seven hours and was
So exhausted when it was finished that he
Drained the cup of wine he was holding,
Waved a vague blessing and fell asleep.
The moon is, of course,
A lifeless, spinning stone
But also of course
An old woman whose feet
Get tired, a rabbit
With a mortar and pestle
And a lantern Osiris
Hangs from a nail
Sobek pounded into the sky.
Baba Yaga, barging into
A poem where she doesn't belong,
Runs into my father who
Is looking to slot in a reference
To his sister Edith who, dying as a baby,
Hasn't featured in many poems.
Baba Yaga complains that she lately finds
Her chicken-legged hut cold at night
"Alt ist kalt" my father sympathizes.
He says the warmest blankets
In the world were those his father
Sewed together from scraps.
Blankets like those don't just vanish;
They're no doubt still somewhere.
The god Sobek arrived tonight
From Port Mahon aboard The Charming Betty
Which brought also barrel upon barrel
Of ammunition. The Lord Chancellor
Was rowed out to greet the god and,
After a lengthy meeting and an on-board dinner
A joint communique was issued. Sobek
Said he knew that many were surprised
That a male crocodile had been appointed
Goddess of Love but, given a fair chance,
He might surprise us all. While seldom
In his long career associated with love
He had, after all, invented backgammon
With which, as he understood it, love
Had quite a few things in common.
If you dream of Wislawa Szymborska holding a stick
In her right hand it means “This year
You will once again not win the Nobel Prize.”
A stick in her left means “Stop watching your phone;
The Committee hasn’t even heard of you!”
Sticks in both hands means “I’m busy right now;
Why not go see what Czeslaw Milosz is doing?"
The shadow quietly walking behind me
I found carefully folded -- left behind
As a debt-pledge and then forgotten.
I use it when I'm trying to look important;
It's the sort of shadow who knows five languages
Or how to quell thunderstorms with gestures
And the rattle of coins in a silver box.
At some point it must have occurred
To certain schools of Japanese monks that
Wearing a large basket on one's head
Makes it difficult to see. Why, then,
Did they start doing it? Perhaps to have
More drama in the world, allowing
Those moments when the basket
Is flung aside, revealing the demon lover,
The avenging son, the faithful monster,
The ghost with promises to keep or
A monk who tells of a sleepless night
On the roof of an abandoned temple
While spirits snarled and snapped below.
Occasionally in pictures which
Have nothing to do with her I find
My grandfather's second wife
Fanny. She looks implacable;
Having made her way into the photo
She'll not be gotten rid of. In time
People will say "Oh, that must be Dora
Or Hepzibah or could it be Elinor
Who put on a few pounds once Al died?"
They'll be wrong, though; I know Fanny
When I see her. My mother told me
In our last conversation "Fanny
Was very hard on me but then I
Was not an easy child to raise."
Max's children had names
Only Max used. (My father's
Was Sock and after 1956
No one ever called him Sock)
Of the names he made up
I know three: Sock, Napugi
And Gininganoy. (I write them
Lest they be lost too.)
Were there nine names or eight?
My Aunt Edith died as a baby so
Perhaps there hadn't been time?
Nonsense! How else could Max
Have greeted her slight spirit
Or told her it was time to depart?
Though the god of poverty's pockets have
Holes in them he never lacks things
Of no use to him or to anyone
Chipped marbles, bent nails, inkless pens,
The key to a house that burned down in 1946
A picture of that house with a dead man
Smiling on the porch and a dead woman
Looking out from an upstairs window.
