Heliopause (4 page)

where life is still motion and we

have seen a rabbit seen a river

seen the rope

 Two times we slept

in Virginia when mountains gathered

themselves for the light

It was pink and then darker

into a lilac no trouble to like

All of the time now we have to imagine

the children of our friends

                     Impossible people

how they go on and how other

times they end by these trees and

oh by their shadows

            the dark uncovered places

of now becoming a then

Dear Seth

▪
for Seth Landman

 

Dear Seth

                 You have been disappointed

in love and I am sorry

               that to hope

for and to imagine love is to possess it

however briefly

     so that when the picture

does not come clear one experiences

not only sadness but loss

                   
We had an appointment

These dumb risks of ours these dumb arms

How aversion is the urge to look away

I know the general uselessness

of looking to words for answers

                              but on occasion

the cast spell works

          so we still mutter

what we can

We stutter
Try

 

Dear Seth

                 It's snowing again lightly in Ohio

like it had an idea and thought

There's no harm

     
in trying it out

before growing distracted

by some town I cannot see

For you in Massachusetts I hope

for enough weather

          that the office gives up

and tells you to stay home

Do you remember the day we drove

out to the gorge?

      I could not see

the difference between the pale sky

and the ground

   like the snow

had erased the whole horizon

It was a good day and I miss you

I hope you are well

 

Dear Seth

                  There is fear the baby

when it arrives will be wrongly

or poorly loved

   that the world is no place

for helpless things

        You will see

reading this through your good beard

how neatly

          I have left myself out

though I understand

           come spring

such grammar tricks

will no longer work

 

Dear Seth

                Yesterday was Thanksgiving

and for you Hanukkah

               At dinner

with acquaintances my joke

about terminal illness did not go over well

and the small spark I'd hoped to kindle

in myself went dark

           Of the many

things I miss about your company

today most keenly I think

of us laughing at death

                knowing

and not minding that death laughs back

 

Dear Seth

                 I love your long-standing appreciation

for the
Voyager
mission

                 whose equipment

is now very old

    When I imagine the adolescent you

delivering the science fair spiel

I picture the body as you now

                          reproduced

at a four-fifths scale

the way they used to paint the child Christ

before looking more carefully

at the actual young

         Neil Armstrong died

the same day
Voyager
finally reached the limit

of our solar system

          as you know

Thanks to him we better see

how to go about painting the moon

 

Dear Seth

                 I am still thinking about space

For a long time they did not know

if
Voyager
had crossed the heliopause

and we lived

in the strange interim

of an event perhaps having occurred

in the uncertainty of something

having happened

      without knowing what

It is like wondering which body part

has begun to kill us

          Chris is very worried

about his eyes

  his mismatched pupils

but I think and say they're probably just fine

 

Dear Seth

                 Now Chris is visiting you

in Northampton and the house around

me exists

        just one room at a time

Nelson Mandela has died

The radio

        can think of little else

You would not believe my pride

at having shoveled the driveway

My shame

         when I fail

to start the fire

  I am actually

alive inside this mythic air

a child assigns

  to the time

before its birth

Were there a proverb for this week

it'd go a little like

        
He who lives

inside a snowglobe always drowns

 

Dear Seth

                 Watching
Frances Ha
the other night

I fell into the panic of my old New York life

with all its drinking

           and so little money

Representations of debt terrify me more

than those of sickness

              I would love to draft a chart

of my heart rate when reading
Madame Bovary

Last night success in building the fire

and Chris has come home happy

                              as I knew

you would make him

             The first night he ate

fried chicken and you ordered pork chops

and these are real plates of food

that make me feel strong and alive

                                  If only

I could think as tenderly of myself

as I do of you and of my former selves!

but this is not the case

              and therefore not a part

of the everything that we still call the world

like the soot on my hands

                    the voice on the air

or the desk where you sit again today

 

Dear Seth

                 I was going to say the alphabet

is perfect but I think I mean sufficient

which is better

  is enough

In my sleep I did something to my back

and here at 5 am I am up

                  trying to think

of a word

         that brings nothing else to mind

 

Dear Seth

                 We are in the new year now

hello

In the last days of the old one

the doctor told us hard news

                        and my mind excluded

most other thoughts

          so when the idea

to make that joke about your book came to me

I was grateful for the visit

And it's true that almost nothing is better

than the movies

    
Philomena   American Hustle

or a series is good

       
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

On New Year's Eve a new test told us

we'd all probably be okay

I did not know

when I began I'd fill these poems

with so much information

                    which saturates

my life

    Some people see information

as that which cannot be predicted

                                the break

in the pattern

It is still snowing

I'd like to know how this year

will break me

 

Dear Seth

                 I have been thinking

about the department stores

of our previous century

                how they enchanted us

with stacks of televisions broadcasting

novel images of ourselves

                    walking through the store

I would wave and jump

I'd never heard of nonchalance

but now there is no place

                   that does not see you

and we have learned to act naturally

all the time

           It's not that we forget

the camera's there

        It's that we struggle

to recall anything else

 

Dear Seth

                 Chris has a terrible cold

and is still sleeping

         while I awoke

stupidly early once again

                   I am dissatisfied

with everything I read

and therefore with myself

Today I think I'll take down

                        the pine wreathes

and garlands

             I will finish up shoveling the drive

Tomorrow the baby hits the size

of a banana

            which reminds me

to buy some for Chris

              (He is crazy for bananas)

I want them to make him feel well

 

Dear Seth

                 Last night we tried to go see
Her

but after dinner the snow sent us home

                                        and here

before dawn I am up thinking of how much

you love the Celtics and
Moby Dick

                                   One August we ate

birthday cake in Herman Melville's barn

                                            Your stomach

is as weak as your heart is steadfast

Henri Bergson says the comic stems

from a certain absent-mindedness

At your house

  when we would watch a game

I'd amuse myself pretending to forget

there was a ball

    but your understanding

travels broader

and more deeply

     You read the bright screen

as a whale would read the swells

Where I see a general blur you see particular shapes

and this is why the game to you must be called tragic

It is too early to go find regular paper

so I am writing this

          on the back of a letter

from BlueCross BlueShield

No action is required on your part

Poem for Bill Cassidy

 

Already I have confessed

the whole alphabet

         under my own duress

I came back again to try

a lamentation

perhaps to put out

a match on my wet tongue

It goes out and I

do not go with it

     There are marks

I find hard to erase

▴

But think how grand it would be

to glide as casual as the sun!

                         shining

light in mild trapezoids along

the floor or hill

   For that kind of work I'd need

the most expensive dresses

Among this and that I also lack money

So I will occupy myself

with keeping bees

        or whatever

Is there a name that makes honey

I will write it

I don't care

I've done worse

▴

Last night apparently a sunset

I missed

      Instead I received some light instruction

Imagine pink imagine pink imagine orange

I can pronounce it

        but I do not understand

How do you say over

How do you say again

               They put the sun back

in the ocean where it's kept

▴

I will consider this milk

                 I mean confess it

Tell me the funniest thing

                    I'll spit it out

▴

A green thought or a mind of winter

Had I either one I'd gladly put it out

I swear I'd plate it!

         But I have only

this green tongue this wet mouth

There's no detaching them

                     and look it's back

the sun

▴

You know how indigo

              the word

threatens always to tear off

into its pieces

When you die

that's the first thing to go

I am guessing

 You'd have to ask Bill

Hey Bill

      
where you are

do you see letters

How long do we wait before we say

there's no reply

   given how slowly