Mr. Harley or Mr. Davidson, I presume

Astride the engine,

he rounded the corner,

the putt-putt just enough

to keep it turning over.

Squinting into the sun,

a cigarette gripped in tight smile

and a rag tied round his scalp,

he held out his hand

in a half-wave,

recognizing his audience

as he passed by.

Pedestrian, I,

the jangle of keys

against thigh,

loose pocket,

every step just far enough forward

to keep from falling over.

Squinting into the sun,

my graying head uncovered,

I returned a half-smile.

Strangers but for this,

we are two of a kind.

He rides on wheels,

I on the soles of my shoes.

Too old to be boys,

too young to stay still.

But when we go,

we will go easy.

A bit about the bookend poems

The truth is, I make stuff up. Well, not really. Much of what I write about is real enough. I mean, I see people and places – moments happen near enough to my attention that the stuff of life is hard for me to miss if I am watching at all. But when I try to get some of all of that stuff down, well that’s when something else happens – a little selecting and shaping.

So here’s a bit about the bookends. I’ll assume this interests you, although the likelihood is that many of you would be more interested in a piano falling from a great height. But what do I know? I haven’t said what I want to say yet. Read on if you want to.

I wrote the first poem mostly because I was sitting on a bench making notes about something or other. It was a beautiful day as beautiful days go. The sun was in my line of sight. Buildings were their shapes and colors. People walked past on the sidewalk. And then a friend came out of the door in front of me. It had not occurred to me that that might happen, although I knew she worked up at the top of those stairs. But it was relatively early in the afternoon. And so on. And then, as it says in the poem, a couple of days later I made a poem out of some of my recollections.

Then, the evening after mostly finishing the first poem, I was walking downtown. Again the weather was a certain kind of perfection – a very mild mid-October. Two friends were having dinner outside on the patio of what is now Merchants. I got invited around for dessert and we were having a perfectly fine evening talking and laughing, when the realization that tomorrow would come crossed into our awareness. The young woman with the rosemary scented hair mentioned in the poem walked by. Somebody pointed out the crescent moon that was about to set behind the very buildings which only I had realized had been the very setting for the moment that occurred earlier in the week that had become important enough to me so that I had written something about it.

So now I hope some clarity comes of all this – assuming you have also read the two poems which have emerged into the universe with my help from within the space of a quarter block and  within the time of about three or four days. Why not say that they are bookend poems?

But here’s the question. How much of this meaning did I create and how much did I simply reveal? And here’s the big one: is there any meaning that emerges from these poems for any readers – for people who were not in those times and places? How does that work?

I recently finished a book by a writer named David George Haskell called ‘The Unseen Forest.’ He described his experiences and the thoughts that came out of his practice of going to the same spot in an old growth forest in Tennessee over the course of a year. He succeeding in putting what mattered to him into words and thereby he managed to transmit some of his meaning to me. Many, many writers have done that for me. Might I have done the same?

Woops, there comes my bus. Must leave these questions to dangle.

The bookend poems

are the two previous  posts,

if you missed the fb introductions.

I wanted to say you looked nice

I wanted to say

you looked nice

when I saw you, me

sitting on the bench

in a patch of sunlight

with a straight line of shadow

for an armrest,

but I didn’t think

of it until

Wednesday

and now

all I can remember

is the look on your face

as I sat there,

scribbling something else

and maybe I just imagined that look.

Or was it a faded

turquoise skirt you wore

with large white polka dots;

the sunlight plays tricks

with your eyes

but I don’t mind.

I still think you looked nice,

if you don’t mind my too lately saying so,

the sunlight was just up and over there,

near where you came out of that door

and turned the key

and turned around to face me.

It was then that I looked up and saw that you looked nice

and then, that you saw me sitting there, except now I wonder,

was it just before or just after?

Was it me looking at you or was it you looking at me?

And then you walked away into the shade

although I’m almost positive there was a swish of skirt.

That would have been on a Monday

that I thought you looked nice.

The weather, then, at least, was clear.

Again, some spacetime 

discontinuty with the photo;

there always is.

Late summer night

The moon tipped

ever so slowly

into a brown-bricked bed.

If only the night could have

gone on forever

but for the sure hastening

of that which had caused

its pale curved reflection

coming round.

And so the spell was broken

or not broken

by the rosemary scent

in her hair,

she passing by,

we heading home,

the cusp slipping in

the balance,

cool mists on cheeks

softening the moon-colored

hard edges.

Photo represents a place,

not the hour, a common 
spacetime discontinuity.

The shadow of your smile

Her eyes cast down at her walking feet.

The day was fair and nearly sweet.

His saxophone played the forgotten tune.

The shadow of your smile.

She lifted her face toward me and soon

my eyes began to water,

and in my cold heart finally grew

the flower of my desolate youth.

And then I walked the other way

I had no more cause to linger,

But now I am telling you

her warming smile

was the holy truth.

for  Glen Simpson

and a young woman passing by

8th and Mass St.

March 28, 2013