there's got to be more below the surface
with spring’s violence flowers burst
into bloom from winter’s death
as chimes toll slowly in the tree
mere weeks ago ice creaked
tightly along the chase tree’s
twisted branches as the chimes
hung limp and people froze
to death alone at home
(May 9, 2021)
like the good china handled
with delicate hands as if
the people pictured could be
shaken from the scene and lost
they are only brought out on holidays
or as we gather to bury the dead
who were the ones who knew them all
these photographs that stepped from context
as soon as the shutter snapped
the aunts uncles cousins friends pictured
within a tangled patchwork of memory
at their own holidays their own funerals
look back at us with our familiar eyes
wanting to know who we are what we’ve become
(February 25, 2021)
the last whisper’s echo went
as if the silence was always there
behind his last breath which fell
away like ash from an ember
simply not there any more
not even a hole where he once stood
(January 27,2021)
when mom died
we scattered her ashes
near the New Sweden cemetery
the chill wind swirled
like a witch’s spell
I inhaled then spat her out
today a cold wind dances
fall leaves down the street
I cough slightly then spit
(December 2, 2020)
With a late autumn
wind, a burr oak leaf flutters
gently to the ground.
(October 20, 2020)
In a few days I will return to work. I am a teacher. I have been working from home since mid-March. The spring was rough and non-productive; as soon as the seniors figured out that grades stopped on the day before they were sent home, they stopped working. I do not blame them. They are driven and smart. And by that point they had all been accepted to college. I do blame the lack of national, state, and local leadership for what has happened since March. There has been so much left undone, which could have been done to prevent so much illness and death. But here we are.
My wife’s parents in their 80’s are in Ft. Worth with her sister right now. Her sister moves to Atlanta sometime after the New Year. My in-laws will come back to live with us after that. Our jobs could kill them. Since my wife has gone back to work in her building two weeks ago, we have not been able to see our grandson. In about six weeks my son’s wife will have another boy, who we will not be able to see because of the risk of Covid. The choice between incomes/careers and the safety of our families is truly fucked. I am not a front-line worker. I am an English teacher. I talk about poetry, and literature, how to write an argument.. to find wisdom in the art of the past.
Austin teachers return to their buildings on October 5th, ironically enough, World Teacher day. The majority of the students will stay home, and continue to do school through their computers. I have been teaching my students for the last three weeks virtually from home. I will continue to teach my students virtually from a room in the very old building where I usually teach my students in person. I, along with two other teachers, will rotate into a room where 9 or so seniors and juniors, who are coming back into the building for various reasons, will be learning in the room using their computers to access their teachers who are teaching virtually from other rooms in the building, or, if the teacher has qualified for ADA or FMLA, from their homes. The students in the building will stay in the room with me and the other two teachers all day.
Do not misunderstand me. I miss seeing my students every day that I am on the computer with them. My students are the absolute best. I wish that I was in the room with them, listening to them talk to each other about poetry and literature. Watch them as they have first encounters with some of the great literature from the last few hundred years. They need little encouragement to engage with deep thoughts with complete delight, making connections to their lives and obsessions, which usually concern topics of social justice. A topic which has become foremost in all of our lives because of Covid. However, I do not want any of them to become ill with this horrible virus, and possibly die. They do not have to be that close to the harshness of life which poetry and literature unfolds for many of us.
And that is the rub, the elephant in the room, the one fact that no one talks about: people are going to die because of a rash decision to open the schools. People are going to die. Say that again: people are going to die. It could be staff at the school, teachers, librarians, principals. It could be students, someone’s child, who dies. It could be the parents or grandparents at home who are infected by the children they love. Now, here is where I fail to understand: why are the powers-that-be willing to risk the death of so many people. Nothing has changed since March when everything closed down. There is not a vaccine; the numbers of infected are still setting record numbers, and people are still dying, lots of people are still dying.
Is remote learning as effective as face to face in the classroom? No, it is not. Is it safer for everyone? Yes it is. Are we that desperate to return to the way things were that we are willing to sacrifice large numbers of our family and neighbors? If so, then I hate to think that anyone thought normal meant willingly allowing death to roam the streets so that we can go have a beer at the local brewery. There must be something more pernicious in play. I fear for us all.
(September 29, 2020)
from a work in progress: “Process, Not a Journey” (67)
our earth wobbles its way
about the sun like a drunk
unsure of her footing
moves again
toward the bar
*
day by day minute by minute
plods toward darkness
for the next six months
each day grows darker
by one minute
*
not quite disturbing
the dullard doves
who coo complacently
on the fence
–
cardinals and jays
fussing constantly
slip after each other
between tree branches
–
I watch and listen
to this dance
for hours
and can do nothing
*
as it was in the beginning
world without end
(June 23, 2020)
limbo
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (61)
months of laconic weeks drift
past as the centuries two-step
a dance macabre about the village
square like old lovers late at night
dance slowly arms entwined
in a practiced grace
your death’s not important
to them any more than mine
only this dance matters
the horror of it lies
in the death head’s grin
which does not pretend
to hide its deception
there is no skin to map
its laughter into flowers
across our blind eyes
no dead platitudes to act
as balm for our world in flames
(June 14, 2020)
from a work in progress: “process, not a journey” (61)
months of laconic weeks drift
past as the centuries two-step
a dance macabre about the village
square like old lovers late at night
dance slowly arms entwined
in a practiced grace
your death’s not important
to them any more than mine
only this dance matters
the horror of it lies
in the death head’s grin
which does not pretend
to hide its deception
there is no skin to map
its laughter into flowers
across our blind eyes
no dead platitudes to act
as balm for our world in flames
(June 14, 2020)
dark earth
from a work in progress: process, not a journey (60)
obsessively the earth gives birth
to its dead rich and fertile
safe inside itself unseen
unvoiced like ecstatic dancers
beneath a moon-bright sky
the earth lifts the rose
the oak twisting and throbbing
into the air so i burrow deep
beneath the black soil a worm
gnashing rocks like prayers
until i find a darker god
and somewhere in the black clay
an old woman natters
lost in perpetual disappointment
as a death skull’s laughter’s
trapped in his life’s delusion
(May 7, 2020)
