It is not yet a loud or demanding sound.
It is more like the voice of a cello under the scene
As I walk to the bus stop, and the sky darkens
In a strange glow of indeterminate color; it is more like
A silence that was not always there as we sip our tea
At the outdoor café, and a child clatters by on a scooter,
And a few doves flutter down to pick at crumbs
By the kitchen door. It comes as a disturbing sweetness
When we kiss longer than usual, when after putting down
The phone I am relieved of an unstated concern about
My location in the scheme of things, when I encounter
My work and am amazed that I made this and it still exists.
It is the affection for something done again and again,
The urge to say that work is good, life is hard, time is for spending.
It is the way the answer, the question, the meaning,
Can be left for another time, while I look at jackets
In a catalog, or blend the salad dressing, or find the word
I meant to use in that conversation yesterday,
Since whatever it is I sought is with me like a sewing kit
When I dare open the lid and let all its tangled threads
And perilous pins spill out on the couch. Yes, the soul
Is somehow safe in my keeping at this point, and my concern
Is whether I could have seen the butterfly better
If I didn’t have my glasses off to read, whether
I left the house without turning off the fan in the kitchen,
Whether tonight I will find the day is gone without
A memory, joke, a hand, a phrase to take with me
Into the enveloping darkness of a restless, dissastisfied sleep
______________
WORK DAY SNOW
The air blanketed with it in muted light outside
As I flog the keyboard under long white bulbs
And lift up dusty files amid the chatter of machines,
The intercom, the soft tinny radios giving out
Café music and scolding rap, the telephones.
The work runs out, and I start to think about
The long trek home, where my lover rests
And waits, and then I hear a young man squeal
Out there, and I run to the boss’s window
To see the snowball fight on the traffic island.
I can’t help laughing as the teenage giants
Lumber about in their ski jackets trying to make
Balls of the soft white stuff, slipping as they run
After one another, scooping up crystals like white mud
Into each other’s faces, yelling and howling
And finally foot skiing across the road
To where the deserted park gleams in the silence
Of its white shouldered evergreens and flowers of snow,
Where a few footprints rapidly fill, and the park man
Plies his salt bucket like a saint of hopeless causes.
And the youths pass on toward the subway and their destination
And I am smiling at the roofs across the street
That wear their thick white caps like so many
Fairy tale dwarves going to bed, who blow out
Their candles as they climb into hollow trees
And pull their white blankets up
To their thick white animated necks.
______________
—B.E. Stock is a first time contributor to Tertulia Magazine.
Copyright © 2007 by Tertulia Publications. All rights reserved. The articles, documents, and information on this web site are copyrighted materials of Tertulia Publications and its writers and artists.
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