Emergences
I am writing this introduction in the Summer of 2019 at a lodge on Little Saint Simon’s Island on the coast of Georgia. Naturalists have taken my wife Elizabeth, others and me out to check on the success of loggerhead turtle nests. In one, the time for successful hatching had passed by several days. There was no evidence of a “boil”, where the hatchlings, following signals from each other, scramble from a couple of feet down to the surface of the sand and make a desperate dash toward the surf, where perhaps one percent will survive to reproductive maturity. Our naturalist dug out the fertilized eggs, none of which had produced live turtles. Maybe a “washover” had occurred, and the eggs stayed wet too long. He opened the leathery ones to see at which stage of development the turtle embryos had ceased to become viable. Almost all were at a stage about two thirds of the way through the incubation process. Little proto-turtles, their forms already clear, were attached to yellow yolks, but they weren’t alive. At another site, a boil had been detected, with evidence that at least some of the hatchlings had made the awkward sprint to the nurturing sea. Our naturalist excavated the nest to figure out the ratio of hatched to unhatched eggs, which came to 45:60. One hatched turtle hadn’t made it to the surface, and had died.
My poems are emerging at about the same ratio as the hatchlings as I continue to work. I include them here in an order determined by the sequence in which they appeared on the surface this project. At one point I created an informal rubric to judge the viability of the works, because I didn’t want to let my feelings, with their vicissitudes, be the judge of what had worth and what didn’t. (I think it was Beckett who said we create work so we can alternately approve and disapprove of it.) The rubric had several categories: imagery of power, artistic unity, sufficient meaning to reward reader effort, linguistic life, authenticity of emotion, tonal consistency, maybe a je-ne-sais-quoi that I couldn’t label. It was an interesting exercise to create and apply the rubric, but I abandoned it. Did I internalize it? Was it not useful? Too much work? Too reductionist? I don’t know, but maybe the selections here have justification in one or more of the categories, if they need any justification at all. Uncertainty is inherent in emergent processes, as philosophers, evolutionists and turtle mothers will tell you. The appearance of these productions is no different.
BREATHING THE WIND
Four bluejays dive away from the copse,
swoop down the hillside in sine wave motion,
turn right over Penn’s creek
and disappear into birdy futures.
On my way back to the cabin,
the wrens hardly pause for me in the woods.
I’m glad enough to be here alone breathing the wind
but wouldn’t mind if the birds
had stayed alongside to bear witness.
Dear Presbyterians,
it’s okay, if you should by chance
pass one on your way to the church
or the bank, to pause and admire
the fountain: the arcing jets of water,
the sparrows flicking their wings
in the pools, the sulphurs dancing
in duets away from the spray.
A merman blows a spume through
his horn. Neptune relaxes
at the bowsprit of an Ark-ish vessel
brandishing his trident. A fish
spits foam. All worth a moment
of reflection among the seashells
that line the stage. No one’s looking.
You’re free. Admire the towering
nudes, the bronze woman and man who
reign over this domain. They cradle
a bunch of grapes. Cupid stares
up in awe at their genitals.
So can you. Imagine the times
they’ll have after you’ve moved on
through the plaza and across the street.
That’s the beauty of it, imagination
in concert with the possibilities.
FLANEURS
Handsome with his beard of a Greek god,
the hobo pulls a feast from the trash bin
on 85th Street by Roadway Farm
scoops snowballs of sticky rice
from a mangled Chinese food box
Sways in the lane to savor the taste
scatters their portion to the pigeons
shuffles to his bedroom at the corner by
Victoria’s Secret’s boarded windows
reclines on a mattress of rags props a cheek
on a fist eyes the passersby just like I
do his brother in the front row seat of my car.
FREEWAY AT DAWN
The cars and trucks
on the freeway
piling their way
into New York
I can’t see
the drivers from here
do these machines
have wills of their own
they dance delivery
like they’re rehearsed it
no doubt
each steering wheel
has hands attached
arms attached to the hands
brains nerved through the limbs
cells at the bottom of it all
as complex
as the throbbing city
that looms ahead
from where I watch
in the womb
of my quiet Toyota
the overarching sky
with its edgeless
patches of vapor
is saturated with
pearly light
I’m having trouble
thinking of anything else
needed to make this
moment before work
any dreamier than
it’s come to be
I-THOU
I heard it call high in the oak maybe a tanager
worth a wait in the shade of the trunk on a bench
after a circuit of the tree the woman nearby talking
on her phone a friend who loved bird watching
saw it as an example of an I-Thou relationship
she doesn’t look at me with my binocs I don’t
interrupt her though I’m tempted I lose the first bird
get up to track a second one black and white feathers
but it’s gone too from a branch I sit and wait longer
but no Bubery connection for me under a blue sky
in the breeze my feet on the ground the shadows
crossing the long lawn toward the dark woods.
ALL THE ANCESTORS
I did find a way to talk to my father
when we spoke of dreams the engineer
would be naked would have lost his wallet.
I did find a way to be with my mother
at Hilltop Arboretum in other parks too
in museums across the continent.
Even so alone after the botanic garden
today the liquid seeps through me India
ink in a sponge of grievous memories.
And I wonder in that part of my brain
that struggles hard to transcend why sorrow
blossomed on the tree of evolution.
It’s a topic I’d like to broach with
my mother my father all the ancestors:
where and when did the sadness begin?
THE GRIZZLY BEAR
the family’s rented a spavined clapboard
house in this rundown town for a few days
I don’t question why these are the roots and
these are the branches my brother and father
have gone out and bought the bear brought
it back in a minivan picked me up from the
grassbare yard we’re cruising around town
as if this were the normal moot thing the
pressure’s too much on me I say we have
got to get rid of this fucking animal I get beady
looks from the two of them but I’m sorry I
know what the teeth and claws are for this
is where I draw the line one last glance over
my shoulder at the beast and I’m out at the
light slamming the door tight parting ways
GREENWOOD CEMETeRY
Up here in hilly Greenwood Cemetery hoary mausoleums
long-term rentals in the City of the Dead a shadow myself
lounging in the shade of a sweet gum tree lulled
by the chanting of cicadas the rise the fall of the pitch
the trailing off of the calls transfixed by the dance
of leaves in the breeze off the water you can hear them
sigh softly are the corpses wanting to say something
now and then a slow passing car a plush coffin of its kind
just about ready to touch my finger on the golden pen write
my name on the waiting list for a unit with a view of the bay
the smell of fresh bread a yeasty resurrection of desire
rises from a bakery beyond the gates I am beckoned that way.
LAST NIGHT, ATTACKED BY BEARS
we were surprised by an angry boar
that tumbled onto the porch of the cabin
had to poke it with a two-by-four
until we could close the door
another one broke into the back room
had to set the latch to lock it off
later out the window an indigo
sow raced across the hay meadow
her blue fur rippling in the sunlight
we haven’t seen bears in these parts
for decades now they seem to be
rising everywhere about this world
ROTATIONS
It doesn’t work until you sense it
the weight of the moon unwobbling the planet.
Just a sliver to the eye in the blue sunset
the tug is felt in the gut.
Gliding at her pace outshining the moon
Venus is out there also dancing her part in the waltz.
But for the halo fading on the horizon below view now
pulling at the inner body of my body our sun
is in turn locked in its spiral arm by the black hole
even deeper in the clock of my intestines.
Out there in here darkness light color form balance
gravity’s burden’s not too hard to bear tonight.
PROFESSOR CATBIRD
What can you teach me today, Dr. Catbird?
You perch on the fencepost,
you bob your tail to give us a peep at your orange arse,
you puff your breast feathers,
you flutter your gray wings,
you look around the landscape with your schoolmaster eyes,
over and over you rasp like a tom on the prowl.
I can see you open your beak.
It’s all instinct, my friend, so what
can you teach me about torment or remorse?
Do you feel anything like a mammal might?
My brain is twisted into a knot. It swings
like a noose in the wind, colliding against
the inner walls of my skull.
Can you think any better than I can think
about the passions of a narcissist?
Can you decipher the dreams of a clown?
This is what I think I can learn from you;
this is the lesson: my nemesis is like a bird,
all impulse and no check to reflect.
I grope and I grope for that path to freedom
whose trailhead is empathy, but
there is no way into the daylight through him.
The message I get from you, Professor,
is to live at peace without resolution or
redemption, just as you live without
grief on your diet of insects.
CTENOPHORES (1)
I can’t help but imagine sitting
here in the Kips Bay Endoscopy Center
waiting for Dr. Weber’s digital snake
to slither up my arse as I read about
ctenophores how they regenerate
their brains over and over in the lab
what it would be like to regrow at will
my own three-pound mass of rubbery
neuron-packed thinking machine
each new brain smarter serener
quicker on the uptake neuroses
unpleasant memories shed like skin
at every rebirth retained: all the ideas
that make a difference and a clarity
a jellyfish-like pulsing understanding
of how to exist in the flow of time
drifting along in currents to the bays
I didn’t know I would call home.