NIGHT TRAIN TO BENARES
when the oily skinned boy offers me some nuts
from the bowl he covers with his headband
I have to take them like it or not he is thankful
but can’t say so in English I stopped the man
with a tractor tire from getting on the train
I saved the boys business because he sells
nuts from the train’s doorway it was either him
or the tractor tire then the train pulls away
from the station and pyramids of overhead lights
recede we click-clack into the darkness on our
way to Benares where Hindu holy men go to die
I suppose around this time Jerry is getting
married in Chicago I was invited but how could
I go I’m taking my holy love to die and now
on the stereo Ravi Shankar plays Raga Ahir Lalit
the music starts slowly but gets hectic at the end
SOUTHERN CROSS: NICELY MAKING WAY
gravel on Field Club Trail grinds beneath my feet
I stop and rest below the tabby shadow of an oak
the red and rust of fall begins to seep into its leaves
with a counterpoint of marigolds in shadows below
sometimes a grief early in life becomes a blessing
if lived through loss opens a door to an empty room
a room with wide windows and the endless sky
don’t kid yourself there’s nothing more to know
one who lives beyond that nothing is like a stone or
maybe like outstretched oaks that have a patients
set upon them by nature to imagine forgiveness
even when they stand in overgrown yards alone
here is still a slow fall of autumn leaves into light
one after another tend to letting go and why not
it is in turning one after another that we come and
go until the last one falls upon a shawl of snow
THE CRUX OF THE MATTER
after we knocked out the streetlamp playing
nighttime frisbee we looked into the Argentinian
darkness and saw for the first time the Southern
Cross I realized then I was on the other side
of the world and even when I was called back
home the other side of the world would haunt
my desire upside down but never falling off
now in an Omaha October when leaves begin
their auspicious route and graves slip into twilight
even now the great mystery that draws us all
reminds me by our mortal nature we are so small
they say there is starlight from numberless galaxies
that takes billions of lightyears to reach the earth
but are we not fools to believe that NOW there
is something out there still it may take another
billion years to know the truth that all there was
when we looked at the Southern Cross was a void
that traveled a billion years to reach our eyes and
yet I still recall how when I looked into his soul
covered by flesh like a hand covered by a glove
I thought I saw a light that poets say is love
