Continuity

A robin on a wire sings in rain
and who I am remembers:
how on days
when crops were parched, bone dry,
my father heard
the robins sing for rain.

Such occasions like this are expected,
the links in chains
that each of us encounters,
self-contained as entities themselves,
so are recorded.

Remembering adds value,
something more
that polishes and brings conviction:
the "what" and "for."
Identity's the product
that keeps the score
as childish judgments are changing:
both who we are
and what we wish to be.

Just now, first death
and BB guns and sparrows
come to mind:

A path deep in the woods
and brains pushed out
like mushrooms through a carpet
or a wart
of semi-constant hue:
fat mixed
with blood;

and guilt, forever guilt,
that makes the song
of robins something different,
sweet and long,
enduring, but full of sadness.

I was wrong to ever have shot sparrows.
I was young
and wanting every penny,
so the song of robins became a constant
and the poem
that brings a death to life
reveals the self that hid behind the leaves
and could not wait
to kill what most it loved,
thus learned to hate
both rifles and the killing.

I took aim and shot,
I thought,
a sparrow,
but what lay
like garbage at my feet
like sex displayed,
a dead and limp-necked
robin.

I bent down
and picked the dead bird up,
still warm, but trash,
and threw it far away,
again bent down
and vomited my breakfast.

Overhung with death
and sick with love,
I took the gun
that I had used on sparrows,
gave it back
and said I'd shoot
no more;

returned the pay,
a nickel for each day,
and then went home,
retreated to my room
and cried alone.

And now some fifty years have intervened.
The sight I still remember
and this poem
reminds me of what love and guilt
can teach about intent.

It was a bird and only one at that.
Reflective cats
might judge my act as trivial.
Cats must eat,
but boys don't have to kill.
It comes to that.

My killing what I loved
made my mistake a matter of importance,
such that love
was not what was important,
but my act of killing,
simply that,
and that for pay,

the careless use of power
and the fact
the small cannot fight back,
but sometimes do
when guilt that lasts
outlasts them.

Nothing cruel
and nothing hate could do
could cause such pain
that still comes back
to haunt.

I walk again
in rain in early April,
wisdom gained,
a childhood pain relived.

I hear a train
that's rushing to Chicago.
How it blows!
As if it runs the world
and cannot stop!

I ask myself a question:

Would I stop
a second time and third
had I the chance?
And if a train,
then why not armies
rushing?
Why not guns
and rockets,
lightning flashing.

I have brains, acknowledge I’m myself,
and still I ask:

Can rain supply an answer?
What would rain stop
with money on the table?

I have thought
the only lessons learned
are learned by pain,
burned deep and left to scar.
Then what of war
and all the scars it leaves?
War does not stop.

If purpose brings regret,
regret is earned
one nickel at a time,
paid back in dimes
by dint of sweat less shiny.

Space and time are tunnels of the mind
that thoughts pass through.
The memory is the storehouse,
also regret
which comes to those who ask it.

Fingers, toes, and legs are what we need
to walk and move
and mouths to make confession,
ears to hear
the sacrilege we speak.

Love huddles here
in sunlight like a prison,
colors caught and held
until, as by a prism,
are set free.

Or freed by stained glass windows
such as these:
reds, blues and greens and yellows.
Mercies squeeze
between the leaded frames
and we receive
the richness of forgiveness.

First the prayers
and after that the lessons.
Gathered here,
both hunter
and the haunted
hand in tithes.
We sing a hymn at closing.

I come home,
reach out and turn the key,
lock door behind
the wished for and the hope,
acknowledging that memories
sometimes change.

Still, age seeps through,
at least enough to show
that strength runs down
as need runs ever faster.
Time condones
and covers faith's evasions.
Faith and grace
join up to cuddle doubt.

Perhaps to doubt is wisdom,
one last rush
of freedom and defiance,
putting face
on what we know is weakness:
thrones and crowns
and legislative bodies,
nothing gained.
I have known yappy dogs
to be more brave.

It is a fact
that when it comes to killing
man is prone.
And so I question motive.
My own life
is both too much and trivial.
Bird or bee,
I settle full of flight,
at once am gone
in hope of being saved
to some next bloom.