Stones (A Meditation)

1. Pond

First father and mother,
then teacher
and first spouse gone,
divorced in triplicate
and buried;

the last close friend,
who died early,
now forever young;
or the neighbor's son,
an acquaintance
written up in the paper...

the list goes on,
growing deep and wide like ripples
from a skipping stone.

2. Stones

I am ringed in a circle of robins.

I remember stones
that I threw without thought, out of need
or because of love,
or just to have something to do;
hence, stones that skipped, so thin
very nearly flakes.

I would throw them flat
so they danced and would be judged well thrown
if they skipped across watery space
to end up on grass.

3. More Stones

Like stones, lives pass.
We sow births
and bright deaths in the byways

in a kind of song
that is sung primarily by the body:
a vibration, a squeeze, an emotion

which occasions waves
that travel outward and down
and are meant to last
as long as our lives shall last.

4. Caregivers

We have two lungs
and one cigarette between us.
Any song we sing
is sung in the hope of more smoke
also mixed with air.

We are torn between hate and despair,
so inspect the floor
or lean back, sometimes rock
in our chairs;

but we do take care
to the tedious feeding of the face,
having stopped repeating
the same words over
and over.

Words are like a gate
that swings both open and shut,
thus leading nowhere.

Once we step outside,
it is always to a taxi that's waiting.

5. Prayer Meeting

The robins are crying for rain:
the wrong request,
even if we are able to hear it.

Every phrase that's sung
is potentially sung as the last,
what with boys and cats
and hawks
and glass windows and cancer.

There is always chance for reprieve
in sleep, in dreams
that nightly remind, cannot replace
and, of a certain, cannot be remembered..

I have need to find alternative transfer
back again to days as I knew them,
so, again, to know them to be
as I remember..

It is my task to protect my joy from romancers,
so, full of grace,
I drop down through the floor of my dreams
like a ballet dancer,

like a person the future is made for,
like the unplanned answer
to questions nobody has asked,
nonetheless, will last
beyond my lifetime and yours.

6. The Lesson

I once shot a robin by mistake,
saw the brains push out,
felt the form warm and limp
in my hand.

I am now more aware of dark boundaries
and have come to know
every song as potential goodbye,

a soft reply
to whose who in love choose to wait
and to some a stone
that is flung in violence and anger.

7. The Invitation

So robins sing
and a mirror fills up in the sink.
I proceed to drink
face down
as if drunk or exhausted;

as if goodbye
is a word to be used as a threat;
as if I took
for the third and last lungful of air,

climbed the moving stairs
in leaps,
two or three at a time,

and exploded there
among faces that look as I remembered
…also surprised.

8. Lullaby

A face appears on a porch
and listens there to the rain.
The gutters lead directly to cisterns
the overflow.

Silent trees that stand
soon will cast off their robes
for winter
even as a breeze
brings forecasts of the first hard frost.

Still robins sing
a song just before departing,
not of resurrection,
but of the declining light;
praising rest, love of life,
and acceptance:

the late and last cradle song
performed as a final mass.

8. Evensong

So robins sing rain and forgiveness
as if their breasts,

as if the flame-colored orange of their breasts
was a setting sun;

as if their song,
even more than the song of the thrush,

were a measured sum
dripped out over time like a tithe;

as if slashed wrists
were that on which song was modeled;

as if my blood were itself a song
set to music and so to be remembered;

as if a bud in the midst and the magic of blooming
had become a song most tender;

so that robins sing a song that is played by heart
and so can flood the blood with peace and resilience.

9. The Lovers

So death and a love that is physical
and the lasting pain
of music
that delays for an instant
are together one;

as also are robins' songs
in the way that flakes
of snow
collect and blow into drifts;

even as mistakes
compound into something greater;
as do faces
and places we remember;

as also love
is a hidden entry to a stairway that itself leads up
to that chamber
where two become one

and together share
even, fully, in late December a wafer,
thin
but forever sweet in the eating,
until it's gone.