Tag: NOR 24
The Blackbird Whistling
By Linda Bamber
Featured Art: by John Frederick Kensett
I do not know which to prefer,
The beauty of inflections
Or the beauty of innuendoes,
The blackbird whistling
Or just after.
—Wallace Stevens
1. The Beauty of Innuendoes
Meaning in poems comes and goes
like a car speeding down a tree-lined road
sun-shade-sun-shade-sun-shade . . .
Poems’ secret places:
fleeting, hidden, close.
Closer yet I approach you, Whitman warmly says;
and then,
We understand, then, do we not?—never saying
what it is
we understand. As I understand a poem
by my friend
but mustn’t tell him
what about the poem makes me feel so
not alone.
2. The Beauty of Inflections
Yesterday I called my friend.
He was in a peaceful mood
(which he would be the first to say is kind of rare).
As if bubbles of CO2 some clams or scallops had exhaled
were calmly rising
in a steady/wavering
surface-seeking
kind of way
up through his contentment
effortlessly rose some words of praise for me. Plain
and unadorned; clear; direct.
The blackbird whistling,
you might say.
In fact,
if my friends didn’t tell me plainly that they
love me
sometimes,
I wouldn’t understand a single thing
I try to read at all.
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Trees in March
By Linda Bamber
We were seated near the back of the Chinese restaurant, and waiters were
rushing in and out of the swinging doors to the kitchen. At the time we had
not as yet so much as brushed shoulders. Resting on the formica table top, my
hand began to feel odd. Not bad-odd; but most unusual. Trees in early March,
aroused, their branches slightly reddened by the slightly stronger sun, may feel
something similar. They have a new sense of their importance in the scheme of
things; they remember (if I may say so) they are divine. He was looking at my
face, not my hand, so I don’t know how my hand, resting near the remains of
the General Gau’s chicken, intuited its sudden access of significance; but it did.
It had aura you could cut with a knife.
Shortly thereafter he took my hand.
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Mango Languages
By Linda Bamber
Featured Art: by Winslow Homer
—For Chris Bullock (in memoriam) and Carolyn Bernstein
In that world people are not discussing The End of the American Experiment.
Yo soy de los Estados Unidos. ¿De dónde es usted?
(I am from the United States. Where are you from?)
In that world people are not in a rage at their relatives for voting wrong and
sticking to it.
¡Tu hermano se parece más a tu abuelito que a ti!
(Your brother looks more like your grandpa than you!)
People there are not tortured by thoughts of what they should have done to
prevent this; they do not endlessly analyze the causes of the disaster; or notice
how many of their friends are independently coming up with the metaphor of
a tsunami wiping away what is precious from the past and has been defended
by their devoted work.
No llame a la policía. No es una emergencia.
(Do not call the police. It’s not an emergency.)
In that world they do not sit glumly when friends excitedly tell of recent
protest marches; they are not thinking, “Great, feel inspired; meanwhile,
they’ve got all three branches of government.”
¡Me encantaría que me dejaras accompañarte a la esta de Pablo!
(I would love it if you would let me accompany you to Pablo’s party!)
People there are not suddenly crossing the border into Canada in the snow
with children in their arms; or trooping out of Jewish Community Centers on
a Tuesday because of death threats; or writing emergency numbers on their
children’s forearms in indelible ink in case Mamacita doesn’t come home from
work that day.
Every morning I cross the border into Mango Languages, my ticket to
oblivion. “Loading your adventure,” says my computer when I boot it up.
Every ten minutes a woman’s joyful voice says, “Isn’t this easy?” to encourage
me, and I admit I feel encouraged.
Córtalos en pedacitos y échalos al agua que está hirviendo.
(Cut them in little pieces and throw them in boiling water.)
They are speaking of nothing more precious than carrots and onions; not,
for example, the Constitution or the Bill of Rights. We are learning to use the
imperative mood, that’s all; and today we are making soup.
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Near the Campo Aponal, on My Father’s Birthday
By David Brendan Hopes
Featured Art: A Rocky Coast by William Trost Richards
De Sandro’s café with the orange tablecloths
wades into the one stone street
without tourists, all the Venetians pushing
their big delivery carts at first of morning.
From what I understand of it,
the shouting is voluble,
happy, glad to be alive, almost never
without reference to anatomy.
Nine years after your death it is still your birthday.
I’m treating you to cappuccino and showing off
my lacework of Italian.
Ecco, I cry, pointing to the beautiful faces,
the beautiful things.
Everything was outlandish to you. Nothing is to me.
In that way balance is achieved across the long years.
But I think you would like these people.
They would pull out the orange chairs, sit down,
listen to what you have to say. You would be old
and wise in a city old and wise, and that would be
enough.
I’d better think of something else before the mood
turns heavy and hard to carry over the Rialto Bridge
with the shops just opening.
All those selfie-taking children,
all that brightness bearing down.
Happy birthday, I want to say,
from the last place on earth, where the earth dissolves
and the crazy towers lean out over
watching for what comes—sinuous, flowing,
unexpected—next.
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