GET OVER IT

GET OVER IT

In the gallery, completely
ignoring poor Alice Neel,
Richard’s at it again –
bouncing from wall to wall,
arms flailing, voice wailing
about Kasparov’s loss to
IBM’s computer, Deep Blue.
It cheated! He screams.
I want to shake him and say,
Come on Richard! Get over it!
It was just a freakin’ chess game!
But, he won’t listen to me.
He wouldn’t understand
what I was saying, anyway.
He doesn’t speak or hear in
English anymore. His language is
expressible and understandable
only by algebraic notations
and Boolean ones and zeros.

FROM THE CORNER OF A BLUE FOG LIFTING

Charcoal Drawing of Walt Whitman by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

FROM THE CORNER OF A BLUE FOG LIFTING
~In Imitation and Praise of Walt Whitman~

From the corner of a blue fog lifting,
Comes an old man bending.
It is the good gray poet dressing
The wounds of the young warriors,
Whom he longs to love.


Dear heart of the nation,
Keeper of democracy,
Man as literature,
Who better to sit by the unsettled
All through their somber night?


Who better to remove their blood soaked rags?
Who better to smooth their hair?
Who better to cry their suffering?
Who better to beseech death to come,
But one who will record it so sacredly?


From the corner of a blue fog lifting
Comes and old man bending.
It is the good gray poet turning
The heavy woolen blankets to find
The face of Christ, divine in death.


After these some hundred years it is
Still the same grass growing,
The same leaves turning,
The same wind blowing across the
Stagnant, bloodied, and flyblown fields.


It is the same celebration of yourself.
The same mist of your breath,
The same play of shadow and light.
It is the same song of yourself,
Sung from the same bearded lips.

THE VISITOR

Watercolor, Old Mossy Moon, by Terry Clark

THE VISITOR


What does it mean when you show up at my door,
Youthful and majestic, a lost Croatian queen, carrying
In your deep fur-lined pockets, fossils of Neanderthal
Bones, like stones, unearthed centuries ago in Krapina?


On my stoop, in January’s radiant light, a crown surrounds
Your pale head, as the arctic winds blow through my open door,
Swirling into the house, touching every corner, smelling of sweet
Black juniper cones, icy ferns, pine needles, and a crush of cloves.


By the fire, we sit for hours as you regale me with your stories
Of giants, and faery-folk, snowy owls, and cave dragons of
Fire and smoke, and of stars that have fallen from the heavens
Into your winter’s garden, where they grow into crystal flowers.


Now that the wind has quieted down and the fire has turned cold,
And I have been told the last magical stories you will ever know,
You pack your words away and start on your long journey home,
Through the moonlit woods, over the snowy hill, toward home.