We only see the present as history,
by day history is a matter of minutes,
by night of seconds, years or centuries.
There is no future to be seen, only
imagined, the mind writing a story
that can never be read, never told.
It is only when we close the eyes
that the present truly exists,
independent of the past, free
and the past is merely waves
washing over and around us,
and the mind can find freedom.
With the stroke of a pen,
they enabled me to write the story,
gave a framework on which
I could hang all manner
of dreams and assumptions,
inviting a search I never
quite got around to making.
I wandered the beaches
of Estoril in my dreams,
stalked the avenues of Lisbon,
looking for a familiar face,
but found only ghosts.
With the stroke of a swab
inside my cheek, a vial
of saliva mailed, the story
came apart, and a new story
slowly unfolded, gone forever
was Iberia, replaced by Scotland
and Ireland, Wales, Norway
and Germany, and my dreams
were filled with the music
of the bodhran and Highland pipes.
He stares at the collection
of pens crammed tightly into
a coffee mug whose handle
had long since broken away.
He knows some are dead,
awaiting a proper burial,
following a brief memorial
service paying homage
to their illustrious past.
He is certain that one
or more is secretly harboring
the poem or story that he
has been meaning to write,
the one that the journal
on the desk has been waiting
its entire lifetime to receive.
I would like nothing more than
to have a long conversation with the birds,
that there is much they could tell me,
much they know that I should understand
but I am the interloper here, and they
have lost trust in my kind.
I watch them closely, trying
to discern what I can of their thoughts,
but in a flash of wing, they erase
my efforts, their unique version
of giving me the bird, so to speak.
I speak to them, offer apologies,
atone for my presence, for the others
who have taken their space,
and they listen, but in the end,
turn away again, having, they say,
heard this too many times before.
It should be the stories
behind the stories that get told.
We have to blame the songwriters
I suppose, telling only the part
of the story they choose, leaving us
to sit and wonder, no answers, forthcoming.
We all know what happened to Billie Joe
and the damned Talahatchee Bridge, but how
did Becky Thompson snare the brother
and for that matter, why Tupelo?
And Mr. Jones, how does he know
what’s happening and not know what it is,
and why in the hell is he so thin?
But Suzanne, she was a real piece of work,
always with the river, but ask
all you want and she won’t say
what river it is and Jesus says, simply,
come back later, you’re not a sailor yet.
Only in a French movie
does a girl stand on a bridge
threatening to jump or not
and weave a story
that so draws us in
that by the end,
when the couple is together,
she now pulling him
from the same brink
we almost forget
that the movie
was in a language
neither of us speak.
She plucks the odd loose thread
puts it on the table and finds another
and a bit of what could be twine.
She weaves them together
loosely, with seeming abandon
until they are an ill formed braid
barely hanging together, a jumble
of color and fabric,
a true hodge-podge.
But when she says
to all of us gathered,
“look at the amazing tapestry
I have woven,
we all nod approvingly
and for a moment, when
we look away, we see
the intricate story she
sees so clearly and believes
she has so carefully told.
Three hundred fifty
miles along
today’s highway
the giant green
sign reads
Harriet’s Bluff Road
and you cannot
help but wonder
what stories
Harriet’s true road
is holding back
from telling you.
She says if you could only
peel back the photograph, you could
read the entire story that lies beneath.
It is deeper than the image below which
it lies trapped, and wider, imbued with a meaning
the image could not capture, just as,
she says frowning, there are no words
for parts of the picture, a symbiosis
that we of unitary senses cannot unite.
This one, pointing to a crucifix, shows him
where he ought to be, the pain, his pain
apparent, but so much deeper than
any image or sculptor’s hand can fashion.
Undeserved pain, not by sacrileges, by rebellion
but he would understand it, he would
revel in it, for he was the greatest rebel
and he would easily peel back the picture
in step wholly into the story beneath.
She says if you could only
peel back the photograph, you could
read the entire story that lies beneath.
Is deeper than the image below which
it lies trapped, and the wider, imbued with a meeting
the image could not capture, just as,
she says frowning, there are no words
for parts of the picture, a symbiosis
that we of unitary senses cannot unite.
This one, pointing to a crucifix, shows him
where he ought to be, the pain, his pain
apparent, but so much deeper than
any image or sculptors hand can fashion.
Undeserved pain, not by sacrileges, by rebellion
but he would understand it, he would
revel in it, for he was the greatest rebel
and he would easily peel back the picture
in step wholly into the story beneath.
