Hydrant

An asthmatic stares at a TV.
It warns of red air quality.
Her bathrobed elbow
Is welded
To a smokey table.

She does not rise
To the window, does not see
The dash of children’s feet
Racing to the city’s hydrant
Or believe
In the sun burnt men
Who clench their teeth
And open it.

They tear the hot street
And find the broken pipe
That would have sent
A mud flow rushing
Toward her kitchen sink.

The asthmatic strains to breathe,
But does not reach
Past the ashtray
To the inhaler
Set beside a glass-half-full
Of something clear to drink.

Quotations: Forgiveness

From the book Gilead by Marilynne Robinson.  The character John Ames (a 77 year old pastor) reflects on his struggle to forgive his godson (the son of his pastor friend).  He has previously described his godson as mean.

…I spent the time thinking how it would be if Jack Boughton [John Ames's godson] were indeed my son, and had come home weary from whatever life he had, and was sitting there still and at seeming peace in that peaceful night.  There was a considerable satisfaction in that thought.  The idea of grace had been so much on my mind, grace as a sort of ecstatic fire that takes things down to essentials.  There in the dark and the quiet I felt I could forget all the tedious particulars and just feel the presence of his mortal and immortal being.  And a sensation came over me, a sort of lovely fear…(read more)

Shepherds Of The Street

The shepherds of the street who pass our house
each day do not suppose they go their way for me.
By gentle steps, one or two move past our place.

At times, a posse walks up to the store
to meet some friends or buy a pack of smokes

and as they go, they talk to me if I am there
and rise above my fear to catch their eye.
Or I may give a Hey, to my surprise.

I am sure I never have that much to say,
but when we speak—or nod our heads to make a sign,
or pound our fists to greet, or even when,

from in the house, I hear them on their way—
I find their presence to be not unlike a compass.

The shepherds of the street do not suppose
they go for me, but, steady, move their feet
south by southwest or else north by northeast.

Broken

Between us, on a tabletop of glass,
a working hand becomes a hammer.

A man wants his way.
He won’t take no.

Blood, though not spilled, boils.
Shards ring out and sing

the ways we will not mend—
how the heart, like a fractal,
repeats a pattern of breaks
and splits when magnified.

My heart rages.  It pushes blood
along a crooked line of strife

until I heed the rattle-crack
and attend the bang of anger.

The embittered rackets rise until
the broken pieces lay at rest between us.