Tasks Done and Undone

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe,/n
and am not contain'd between my hat and boots.
        —Whitman

Better today if I had gone home to work
on the wooden gate, which is coming apart,
but the robin has hatched her brood 
on the downspout nearby and stares at me
if I get close or make the gate groan, as in a poem
I read recently with the opening line thus:
Would everybody stop dying, please?  Whitman
no longer is contained between hat and boots;
and Roth, this morning announced his silence,
and Pope Francis, himself, says in a movie,
he is not immortal.  The Pope.  So I repeat,
Don’t die, please, and still agree to carry
the casket of my pal Bob, at Jefferson Barracks
National Cemetery, on his way through
the squeaky gate.  I am a realist.

The Day Marian Anderson Sings
“My Country ’Tis of Thee”

It is 6:20 p.m., my wife and I have finished dinner, 
             shrimp on rice for her, and for me nothing 
             special, but the dishes are mine, as usual, drying, now, 
             on a pad made by Martha Stewart Inc.

As usual, we watch cable news in hopes 
             of something hopeful.  Yes, a pandemic 
             and vials of Pfizer iced in Michigan, and my wife 
             asks, How many times can we see needle jabs? 
             and hear the words into our arms—if I hear that again— 

* * *

so I mute the news and say, Let’s read this poem 
             here on the coffee table, something called
             “At the Thursday Night Jam, Remembering an Absent Singer,” 
             where the poet, Henry Taylor— 

I’m supposed to say “the speaker,” I guess—
             remembers a song his dead pal 
             used to sing, which Taylor, I mean the speaker, says—
                          “It’s hard to hear in any voice but his.”  

We nearly drop dead at that line, so we flip out 
             of cable news, entirely, all of its speculating 
             on what and how and if this, and somehow, 
             for once it’s not Masterpiece Theater 
             on public television but a narrator with black-and-white 
             footage, saying “. . . and then Miss Anderson,”

* * * 

whereupon I blurt the words, Marian Anderson, 
             not sure why, and my wife, now silent, 
             which I take means to her, sure, it’s 1939; who else?—
             snubbed by the DAR, and some guy 
             named Walter White gets the Roosevelts to pull strings

             so in April, out she walks
             with the big Mr. Lincoln behind her, and I admit, 
             I really respect the fur coat; my wife’s 
             not making a sound because we’ve joined 
             Cont, stanza break
             the 75-thousand all dressed up, even the kids—
             not a flip flop or midriff—when
             Miss Anderson closes her eyes and sings,
             “My country tis of thee.”

It is 80-something years later, when the words 
             “to thee I sing” become for her 
             “to thee we sing,” which you might know,
             is the song from now on, 

we can’t hear in any way but hers, whereupon 
             my wife turns to me, so I see 
             in her eyes why she—I mean everyone—
             and I stopped breathing.

The Note,

 —ending with a line by James Tate

the sound of an empty 
beer bottle hitting 
a freshly mowed lawn,

lobbed through silence 
of proscribed 
duration, about 10 feet 

maybe three, four
seconds, though Tate 
once said it took him 

three hours to get 
to a jumping-off place,
and like him, the bottle 

made a hollow-headed
note, hitting
ground, as if blown 

through cupped palms,
whistle-like, a coo 
for mourning, a Bonk—

the arrival of an idea,
say, at a place 
anyone could rest 

and not shatter,
sweat still sipping 
at your forehead

and the sky pinned
like the pages of a book
written by a dove.

Chickens Known and Unknown

I loved Chickenman, ca 1966 ff., of Midland City,
I took for St. Louis, then, 
on my ‘50 Ford radio, trumpeting triumphantly, 
Buck, buck, buuuuuuk. Chicken-mannn,
as he rushed off in his Chicken Coupe
to rescue the still-single Sayde, or to
his human job, selling shoes in the city of shoes – 
first in booze, first in shoes (last  
in the American League) – fantastic fowl
of footwear – He’s everywhere.  He’s everywhere – 
even over Armed Forces Radio, should
the draft board send me to Fort Leonard Wood.

I loved the San Diego Chicken, ca 1974 ff.,
droopy lids and huge beak – 
give me a break – a greater physical comic
I rarely have seen, maybe Danny Kaye,
but the Padres got us all through the fall,
as we used to say, of Vietnam, 
as the Chicken appeared with Chuck Berry, 
Jimmy Buffett, Paul McCartney, then covered
“Do you think I’m sexy?” by another Stewart
on WIL radio, Cardinals fan or not.

I never loved chasing chickens, or the chicken
chasing my three-year-old sister Christine
with its head cut off, spurting blood, 
or the smell of boiling water poured 
for plucking pin feathers, and never, ever
loved Henny Penny—too chicken—
or maybe just me, in my soul, 
Huey helicopters hovering over the trees
on Kingshighway and Florissant Road,
dropping a big hook for the delta,
where my buddies hung in the sky, ca 1968 ff.,
by the neck, like rubber chickens.

Our Happiness

Do you remember our happiness
when the electricity came back?  
Lights forgotten those days
of cold, heavy dark, sprung on
like a dog startled by a latch.   
The refrigerator began to whine
as from the rubble of a disaster,
its food all gone—milk, 
bacon, leftover linguini.  So long
were we without cheese,
I had forgotten grapes, 
crackers, roasted garlic,
and gritty, sharp Romano
with claret.  Without 
the balm of furnace breezes 
billowing from vents
I had forgotten desire,
reds and bourbons.
We walked through the house
like members of the James gang
who hid out in caverns in bluffs
along the Meramec, and maybe 
wondered if they might have gone 
another direction, worked 
the dirt, or iron, or split logs,
as we, ourselves, would stop
now and then to wonder
about the TV in the window 
across the road, blinking
its blue light from centuries 
in the future, how it seemed
to promise another life
that one day would flicker
for disbelievers and us, alike,
and I would say, Oh, Honey,
let us restock the fridge,
and you would say, Oh, Love,
we have all that we need.

In the Back Pews on Easter
at St. Ann’s in Prairie Village,
& Simultaneously St. Elizabeth’s
in Waldo, St. Frances & Doubtless
Our Lady of Sorrows, Midtown

Babies being carried out to howl
in the lobby, then carried back in, 
passing each other, babies with backs 
arched in some kind of agony, eyes 
scrunched shut, babies beginning 
to toddle, who return on their own 
tiny feet, picked up, passed back 
and forth, moms to dads to grandmas,
who sit with the book for babies,
birds, giraffes, and babies moaning
full-out wails, dropping to the floor 
and chased under pews, breaking
crayons, babies banging Tonka trucks,
babies held by friends in the parish,
babies going guhg, oogh, teething
a shoulder, waving to the young
man here alone, behind the baby, 
waving back, smiling, grandmas
kissing the little fingers after babies
have been on the floor, babies
crawling the aisles for the readings 
of Acts and Psalms and the stone 
the builders rejected, scooped up
before they topple the little table
with cruets of water and wine,
babies grasping the basket lined
with cash, and everyone holding
babies to their shoulders, during
Colossians and John, laughing
with babies at the Elevation.

© Robert Stewart, all rights reserved.