The Edge of Silence

The edge of silence

haunts me,

listening here,

where there is still

song and rhythm

and echoes and noise,

sounding and resounding.

 

It would do

no good

to put my ear

to the edge of silence.

There would be no news,

no hints, no vibes, no clues,

coming here from there,

from beyond the edge,

from no place.

 

I cannot speak

across the edge,

but neither have I crossed to there,

and I still have this voice.

And so much left to say

about who I loved

and how I loved

and what I did decent

and did well and what I did

that did not help

and what I should have left undone.

 

But all songs have accent points,

pianissimo, harmony, crescendo,

and debatable notes,

and so shall mine.

The best that I have done

was arguably the work of others

with whom I played, and loved,

and labored, and chased after

gossamer-winged fancies.

 

Can you hear

the smile in my voice,

when I say, here,

at the edge of silence,

that we were sometimes great

together,

and sometimes awed

at what we discovered

in and out of each other.

To have simply lived as we have,

and as we do,

and as we went and go,

was and is, perhaps,

too careless or, maybe,

too careful, but was and is

courage all the while.

 

And so,

I am moved here

at the edge of silence

to say that I am certain

that you will step forward

and forward again,

and be just as brave

as you can be,

and full of song,

and full of look and listen,

and full of touch and love,

and building dreams

that will last and last

as long as you are willing.

 

All of you.

My dear ones, my babies,

my comrades, my heroes.

Hidden away from the whole

The voice,

her voice, repeating,

I have to hang up.

We’re about to take off.

They want me to hang up.

We’ll talk tomorrow.

Okay?

 

I imagined she was speaking

to her mother that way,

or to the parts of her mother

dementia has left untouched for now,

not the parts

that have been buried away

from the whole of the world.

 

But another voice,

speaking more forcefully,

cited the pilot, saying,

you must stop now

and end your call,

and said it again,

end your call.

 

The oil and water chorus

continued, and the voice

said goodbye before,

one voice to another,

explaining,

that was my brother.

He’s in prison.

 

And my next thought was

that must be worse than dementia.

 

March 1: From Caracol to La Ronda Parakata

In an epoch of nightmares,

the walk to the lake,

transformed by mood and by moment,

planned as a journey with Jetta,

to proceed from Caracol

to La Ronda Parakata,

from Black Lives Matter,

the name and the point

of resistance and vision,

this time around,

to the fresh flow

of Ukrainian blood,

and the tears for democracies,

forever imperfect.

 

The redwing blackbirds are back

and begun to build their numbers,

though not yet reached

the this-is-ours claim

that will soon fully invest

blackbird central

in advance warning

of dive-bombing birds

headed this way.

 

On the way, the gray planter totems—

massive, ornamental contraptions,

bizarrely conceived as artful décor

for the concrete expanses

of breakwaters and piers—

have somehow been heaved,

grinding and fractured,

by the great lake in winter.

The pulverized fragments lay on the path,

like bits of Kyiv littering the world.

 

The caracol, Spanish for snail,

an escalera de caracol,

a spiral staircase pressed flat,

its broad painted surface,

splashed with color of cultures

and feelings gathered on borders

of habits badly in need of fresh vigor.

 

The phoenix of hope

for a future at risk,

depends largely on those

who can juggle their fear

and plan radical ways

for healing all wounds.

 

A barge makes its way

through ice jamming boat slips.

The watermen whisper to water

with words not meant for my ears,

but I do hear their murmurs

and do have the tools

to shape meanings that drive me

to where I and all this

are harnessed to go.

 

In the tufted tall grass

of the cold weather prairie

Jetta digs from the ice

the shredded remains

left behind by a hawk,

and swallows rotted morsels

before just a mile further on,

vomiting a bit back

to the field to share

with whomever will next eat

off this ground.

 

Over the rise

in the trail ahead

comes the form of La Ronda 

where the butterflies pray

to slow our ill-fated rush.

The view this day is still water,

and the weather

waits to be called

to deliver trouble in surges

resembling the way

the dark ages looked

to those who could see

the future unfolding.

 

And justice continues denied.

And the blood keeps on spilling.

And pooling and drying and staining the world.

Isabel Increscent

Isabel,

hey, Isabel,

I am Jeff.

 

Been that way

for the longest time,

but now,

of a sudden,

I am Isabel’s Jeff.

 

Not brand new, at all,

but remade, somehow,

by your becoming,

in a similar,

but less suddenly sudden

appearance in the doorway

of a future that I

will never see,

but into which I will be carried,

in my bits and in my pieces,

in the swirling current

that is you flowing forward.

 

Think now of all the other

everybodys and everythings

lifted and carried

in the flood of you,

in the cresting wave of you,

in the torrent of you,

cutting a new channel.

 

I am Isabel’s Jeff

and you, Isabel,

will carry on without me,

neatly deposited in your wake,

my good-bye smile at you flowing forward,

the last and best of me.

 

You are Isabel

and I am Isabel’s Jeff,

a man of your invention,

who knew you,

and loved you.

Memory ... and longing

The reality

of what once was

competes

with what now is

at least

in terms of how memory

can be experienced

by those

who long for that

with great intensity.

Longing is not

a backwards thing

but is sometimes

a way back.