She grew up in a single-wide
On county forty-three;
I doubt you’d even notice it,
It wasn’t much to see —

I knew her first in Sunday School,
In summers, long and hot,
With each of us as dressed up as
Our families ever got.

Then both of us were singers:
With our families, in a line,
With her voice even louder than
The ringing sound of mine.

Her mother died when she was ten,
Of what’s called ‘complications’ —
Her uncle took to alcohol
And other allegations —

She never went to college, never
Traveled with that voice;
And when I moved, I knew she stayed
Because she’d little choice.

We’d kept in touch for several years,
Through many ups and downs;
She’d stayed out county forty-three,
While I’d done cities, towns —

I had been ill: once better, I
Set out for wealth and fun:
The men she’d married weren’t nice,
And children she had none.

When dusting, just a week ago,
I found a hymn-book worn
From back in days of Sunday School,
Its pages frayed and torn —

And thought about her, wondering,
And looked her up online,
And messaged her, to just say “Hi,
How are you, I am fine…”

She messaged back, and we began
To trade our stories, news;
I showed her pictures of my life,
All of the family views —

But her life had been bleak, I thought.
With little in the way of gain,
And much of loss, and obstacles
To everything but pain.

I asked her if she ever thought
About the things that we were taught,
Or ever felt that word or song
Had steered her any, ever wrong.

And she said, “No. I’m happy, true.
I still believe what we believed.”
What I had called, in passing word,
‘The common answers we received –‘

And she said, “You’ve been very blessed.
Do you find solace still back there?”
I said, “I do, but find at times,
I tend to camp out in … despair.”

She laughed (or lol’d, I guess)
And said, “Well, Owen here’s the deal.
You live up in the city, while
I still I live out here near Cordele.
I’ve only known the life I’ve known,
The things I’ve seen, the way I feel…”

“Yes, fate is cruel and life is hard,
And much that’s good, we bury:
And through the treasured times of life
We run, when we should tarry —
We know that love is all there is,
Though circumstances vary:
But common answers aren’t wrong
Just ’cause they’re ordinary.”

I thought about what she had said,
That night before I got in bed,
And asked my wife, who knows such things,
What all she thought of that.

I looked at her in silence,
In those dark and loving eyes,
Then she said, “You were singers,
And a good song never dies…”

Here’s a sort of Wednesday truth
That love is not a carry-on
To shove under the seat when we
Are slightly inconvenienced

Here’s a sort of denouement
To what is sensed when we’re alone
That much we do’s just fiddling
With labeling and sequence

For sadness comes like rain on glass
We see it and we feel its bite
Just one more thing past our control
Beyond our comprehension

The calendar’s a type of vise
That squeezes on and presses us
When what we want is living space
And not an intervention

So here’s a pot of Wednesday truth
To stir until its serving time
That life’s indifferent to our woes
And memory’s a liar

Who picks his spots to tell the truth
But has us give the day away
When we could use it for ourselves
And be a presence-buyer…

I stand upon the lonely stair
And hear you breathing breathing still
Although you’re gone you’re gone away
You never left my heart or will

You never left my world at all
Just this external prison here
And though time has her rituals
I see past those and feel you near

For you’re inside my very cells
A generation generates
Heredity environment
Is us our lives our loves our fates

And like a hint of Wednesday truth
We taste it slow and savor strong
The knowledge of our weakness in
A current broad and fast and long

A river flowing there outside
The window through which falling rain
Comes pouring in the open mind
To mix with fear and hope and pain

But this is you and this is me
A vibrancy a harmony
At once an aged newborn youth
Who Wednesday dines on whim

And truth

Send the palace aids for packing,
Palisades to fend the night;
Where we’ve been there’s nothing lacking,
Nothing lacking but the fight —
Fighting on the hills and beaches,
Down along forgotten glades,
Schisms of a higher order,
Battles on the palisades.

Here’s a girl who’s lost a soldier,
Here’s a boy who’s lost a dad;
Nothing left in gun or holster,
Skies are dark and times are bad —
Comes the sparrow of the season,
Comes the singing of the song:
Time has rhyme, but little reason,
And it never lasts that long.

We believed, and so we sanctioned
Our haphazard ways and means,
But then dieted on plankton,
Whales of turquoise and baleen —
Floundering out in the desert
Not a place for whales to be:
Whales or narwhals all aplenty,
Mired in passivity.

Turned into a sort of painter,
Seeing through the living eye;
Falsehoods that could not be plainer,
Plans that always go awry —
Sketches made and colors tangled,
Love, a tragedy in clay:
Capering among the ruins,
Searching for a hideaway.

Hominids of some distinction,
Tools made out of earth and stone,
Shuffle slowly towards extinction,
Live apart and die alone —
We approach their secret border
Softly as an April dawn:
Schisms of a higher order
Only shown when we are gone.

Voices of eternal caring
Sing in ease their gentle tunes;
We have long been sorrows bearing,
Carved by hand in ancient runes —
Melodies and sacrifices,
Hearts and heads and hands that fail:
Then the ship lets up its anchor,
Early winds fill up its sail.

So much honor, and confusion,
So much pleasure and despair;
What we ask for is illusion,
Neither here nor truly, there —
Situations flat and fallow,
Earth untilled and soil worn;
Even aging heads seem callow,
And the oldest barely born.

Send the palace chieftains packing.
Few the uses for their kind:
All our riches leave us lacking,
All our seeing leaves us blind —
We were young once, and commanding.
Steering life by spur and bit –
Schism: us and understanding,
One last higher order

Split

just juice, please, and thank you, no.
back in nineteen-forty two…
would you like the omelet ma’am?
what a handful robin was.
need to get these lenses fixed!
we were always very tired…
get me a remote control.
how your father loved to fly —
home depot should do the trick.
have you seen our library?
go the back way turn right here.
wow, they’re very thorough here…
stamp collecting was my thing.
would you like more coffee sir?
what’s the score? it’s three to one!
i’ve been up since almost three —
cherry rhubarb, that sounds good.
a “dutch braid” is what it’s called.
travel agent here’s my friend…
there were three who cleaned me up!
carrol o’connor: he was good.
could you cook this bacon up?
all your forms are in this file.
do you watch baseball that much?
i’m worn out, i’m turning in.
hello there! is this your son?
i guess guava would be fine.
have you ever seen this show?
give my love to all back home.
here’s what you were looking for.
any errands more to run?
yes, tomorrow the same time…

so many mountains to be climbed,
so many steps along the way;
in laboring and struggling
is much that fills the average day

behold: the mind of innocence
that turns and warps when laden down;
among the cactuses and thorns,
another hill, another mound —

there is no simple reckoning;
there is what is. but the ideal
is like a blanket overhead
that blocks whatever light is real.

to live and seek for victory,
or to accept defeat:
these are the two alternatives,
perhaps. there’s no escheat

whereby some other life may come
to one who’s never lived it:
the only talents can be had
are those at birth-time gifted.

in climbing, and in balancing,
in moving hill to hill,
is evermore activity,
for mind and heart and will —

but let no truth go unremarked:
there’s poison near at hand,
and far away from every thought
is that most lethal land

where labor turns to prurience,
and lethargy to pain,
and though we may go forward, one
cannot go back again.

the journey always kills us:
always has, and always must —
for we are but a shadowplay
that flickers in the dust —

that flickers over mountainsides,
in rivulets of sweat,
in moments brief and harrowing
that are not over, yet.

but still, whatever good there is
we must seek out, at last;
so many mountains rise, indeed,
and progress isn’t fast —

but look upon the lonely sights,
and know this truth, condensed:
that our own limitations are
what we must work

against