Travel Instills in Me a Certain Kind of Faith
I.
Johnny Cash said he could wake up
in his tour bus, look out, and pinpoint where
he was to within five miles. I cannot believe that,
but don’t tell me he didn’t believe the honesty
in the train’s wail over there worming
across the field like a cast-iron necklace.
He wrote songs about those songs.
II.
A town labeled Paw Paw on a map is most likely
called something else by the locals, but at least
trust the light in mid-December,
the way it tans the windburned stubble
on the cheek of Illinois, where shadows
of windmill blades sweep like razors,
which you shouldn’t deny are sharp.
III.
I believe the politeness
shown by travelers speaking
a foreign language, the way they stop
and start and search and ask in their smiles
to please understand them. No one
talks that politely in a native
one, so if you hail my attention
kindly in yours I will not believe you.
IV.
Spend five euros for an Inis Beer in a pub
on Inisheer that lacks a James Joyce Pub Award.
Do not spend seven dollars for a Guinness
in a Jekyll Island sports bar that hopes
you will believe its James Joyce Award
plaque by the front door is genuine.
V.
The easiest thing for me to believe is
the missing O in an abandoned motel’s sign
near Las Cruces. I believe the tumbleweeds
stuck in all the open doors there. I sometimes hear opera
in an airplane’s cabin noise. I want to always trust
an imagination that makes music from that.
(First published in Carbon Culture Review)
A Long Way from Underground
Tropical Storm Irma uprooted the backyard
alligatorwood, which was too bad—
the tree had challenged the Cliffs of Moher
to see who could last longest.
I am sorry I never grew my arms
long enough to wrap around
its deep-ridged trunk.
The Georgia-red mud made the root base—
wider than I’m tall—
ugly as a monster’s maw
drooling the rain’s dregs.
I doubt the skeleton
it pulled out of the ground,
roots wrapped around the skull
and threaded through ribs,
would have remained buried.
Bones crave the air and light
of solved mysteries.
(First published in San Antonio Review)
Galway Bay
For Jessie
The house I grew up in now has two storeys.
I haven’t been inside in forty years.
One day I’ll ask the owners for a look around.
I want to see where they put the stairs.
I walk around the house I live in now,
hope to discover a door I’d not noticed
that leads to a room we never knew.
The new room brightens like curtains opening.
We pull back the dust covers from the furniture,
gather them, shake them outside, hurry in
because we are enamored with the surprise.
Does a house feel? If so, I can’t explain
how it must feel when unknown rooms are discovered.
Or when a storey is added.
What happens to attics in that case?
Are trunks and old photo albums moved elsewhere,
or do you build the storey around them?
My favorite story to tell about this was in the Claddagh,
Upper Fairhill Road, Auburn House,
dark and empty under renovation
for a second-storey addition.
I was invited to look in the window,
where I imagined the place under a spell,
modest outside, spacious and airy as a manor
when you enter, perfect view of the bay upstairs
waiting for floral drapes to part.
(First published in Days of Clear Light: A Festschrift in Honour of Jessie Lendennie & in Celebration of Salmon Poetry at 40)