FILLING OUT THE PICTURE
I
I hadn’t touched a brush
Or sold a picture for weeks.
Joanna had rebuffed me, too,
And I rued the lack of romance.

Sour of mind, I wondered if
A strew of negatives would rule my life –
Doors that opened, closed, again, again,
Self-reproaches I kept quiet about,
And people who irritated me.

I tried new things and drifted into worship,
At St. Mark’s, where Joanna went most Sundays,
To see if I could brighten up my life.
But I had no wish to stretch my brain.

The angels that sang at creation, I heard,
Sing each time a sinner turns to God.
I didn’t care for half of that,
Though I liked to picture angels singing
And other images that enhanced my mental landscape:
A swathe of orange in the sky at dusk,
A flash of mountain jade,
Silver bells at Friday noontime.

As I walked along a humming street
With maple shadows on the bricks
And sunlight winking off the tops of cars,
I saw instead of ordinary life
A cloud-flecked mission bright and vast
And wondered what I’d find in days to come.
Entranced, I failed to see a driver running
A light who slammed me to the ground.

II

Old Peachtree visited my hospital room,
A painter whom I’d hoped would show me
The secret of revival.
But he’d collided with a dry spell, too,
And hadn’t worked for months.
I’d seen him striding through Saint Mark’s
As if he were its feudal lord
And wanted others in their proper place,
Another irritating person you wouldn’t want
To see unless you craved cold-water truths.

“It’s good you looked to us for help,”
Said Peachtree, gratingly insensitive.
“You missed out if you wanted only good feelings back,”
He said. “Dig below the surface. Find the center.
No easy task, even for us with years of practice.”
I looked away. A parrot or squirrel,
Old Peachtree had collected
A slew of vague remarks
That brought no profit even to himself.
“The problem with unbelief is not the message,”
He went on, “but we who think we hear it.
“The point is this – we’re wretches needing rescue
And when it comes, we ought to hold on tight.
Instead, we usually turn away.”
Small wonder Peachtree’d lost the knack, I groaned.
No angels sang.

III

I avoided Saint Mark’s after that,
Blamed my accident on them,
Claimed they’d distracted me.
What’s more, they’d talk about my shame,
Since Peachtree was a leaky sponge.

The scratchy groove returned,
Doors slamming, self-reproach,
A gaggle of neighbors I couldn’t abide.
I walked with a limp – another Jacob? –
And drawing eluded me.

IV

A piece of news. Joanna slipped at practice.
Leaping half-way across the stage,
She tore a ligament in her knee, and was
Laid up now in my old room, 330-A.
I became the hopeful caller, then,
Disposed to learn.

We heard cars through an open window
Murmuring on the street;
Pigeons in the branches of an elm
Took off in rising arcs;
A breeze brought voices,
Laughing, teasing, the words of a song.

“The joys of life,” she said, “go on all the time.
I don’t know why some of us complain so much.”
“You’re feeling better, then. Will you dance again?”
“The doctor says so.” She shifted and sat upright.
I told the story of my own mishap,
About which she’d already heard,
And the way officious, crabby Peachtree
Had nearly wrecked one day.
“A heavy hand just shuts us down,”
She agreed, “but are you sure you understood?
He must be suffering something fierce,
Striving for a deeper vein with no one to help.
But he’s right in one way. It’s good to know
We’re off the track and need to make a change.”

I’d brought a pad,
Tried to sketch the birds
With lines that didn’t satisfy.

“Mr. Peachtree told you only half,
It’s not just crosses – new life, too.
God is pleased when we see things clearly
And love the life he sends us.”

“If I had a woman to love,” I moaned,
And then abruptly, “You for instance.
Are you seeing anyone?”
In a stronger light, I told myself,
I’d have drawn her lambent smile.
“I’ve got at least three friends
More amiable than you,” she said.
“It’s not too late to make improvements.”

She’d cast me down again and smiled to see me frown.
“You love little tidbits,” she said, “never the big story.
You prefer the weaker colors.”
I thought I knew what she was telling me:
“You mean we’re wretches, as Peachtree said,
Forever brooding about ourselves.”
“You need a sturdier way of seeing.” she replied.
“We’re lucky that the One who makes
Things perfectly and calls us to him
Through His suffering and return to life
Knows how to heal our vision.”

I wanted her to keep on talking because I love
The pearly sound of her voice when she’s stirred up.
“See the truth,” she said, “and you’ll be strong.”
“I can if you’ll help me.” I opened my pad
And drew some lines to show
The fall of hair upon her cheek.
“Why don’t you call me when I get back home?”
She asked. “I’ll come tomorrow,” I said as firmly
As I dared, “and finish the drawing I’ve just begun.”
I would have sworn I heard an angel song
Fill the room when she quietly said okay.


CANTATA FOR HUMANITY
Klaus, the Conductor
Other than the orchestra and me, a few invited guests and the composer, this is the first time anyone has heard Anton Threadly’s cantata. His best work in a decade. It will restore his reputation; he’ll go to his grave knowing that his music will last beyond his deteriorating body. He says he’s pleased with what we’re doing. Why wouldn’t he be? We haven’t had enough rehearsal time to get the rhythms right, though. Some of the entrances are still sloppy.

Drums and trumpets throb like heartbeats,
To start the history of the world.
A violin croons a mournful song.
And a chorus sings of paradise,
While flutes and bells twitter
Like the voices of children.
A harp represents the dragon.
For the fall of man in song,
Running rivers of song.


Shirley
I’ve been looking forward to this evening. It will take me a while to get into the piece,
because I keep thinking about my cashier friend Daniel, sitting next to me, whom I coaxed to come with me. I’d help him, but I’m not sure he wants to do more than he’s doing now. His mind roams, he searches. He could grapple with interesting challenges if he chose to. I’ll know before the night’s out if I care whether he rises or not….oh, I like that sound.

Commas and dots from xylophone and piano
Make a jazzy, wounded tune,
While the chorus hisses,
And then a pizzicato beat: one, two, three.
A bass drum intrudes: pom-pom
And strings trill like water
To accompany the travels of the ark.

Jeremy
I want to tell my story in a unique way by focusing on this one life-day before I came to Blaine Hall. Subway and street car to work…hurrying on foot past shops and apartment buildings…a park I noticed without seeing – children, grown-ups on benches. Most people all over the world are active. And the planetarium of which I have risen to become director – another example of variety and abundance, another priceless picture that I haven’t yet brought
into myself.

A squealing violin precedes piano trills,
And a song ticks like a slow clock.
The orchestra plays a simple tune,
The bases blare, a piano takes the lead.
Various simplicities combine to form a larger simplicity.

Mr. Comstock
I used to come to these concerts with my wife, now passed on. A small change in a world that always changes. This Threadly – why does he desert his theme before he really gets going on it? The fall of man, the ark. Then he drifts away. I should sit him down and tell him what to include, if he insisted on sticking with the Pentateuch – bondage in Egypt, the long travail in a wilderness that ended in Joshua’s great victory. He should know all that and many other things I could tell him. Instead, when I see Threadly, I’ll let him know him about Ruth – my Ruth and the other Ruth whom God saved for faith.

The chorus interrupts a march
And hums over muted strings.
A soprano sings a torch song,
One voice pleading for all.
A rise and fall of sound, a drum thud.
The chorus is a jungle voice,
And the soprano glides toward pity.
Woodwinds and strings converse in bird chirps.
A second woman’s voice surrounds the first,
Rising and falling, seeking a new register.


Marian, the Harpist
How many people out there? How does this music affect them? I don’t come in for a while but I need to pay attention, so I can’t let my mind go off on one of my rhapsodies. Words, music and an ancient story in today’s styles. The world and its people always on the move, energy prized everywhere. Bing-bang-boom. Why doesn’t the bass drum go away?
If we – I – could get near – ride the source of the world’s energy – what couldn’t we accomplish? The earth moves in a somewhat stately way – orbit and rotation – with its atoms and molecules that we figure out how to speed up, which may distort their purpose – and be bad for us in the long run.
That’s what this piece is about – that there’s another way of thinking than adding up and putting together and digging into. I can’t find a good way to express my meaning. Oops, my entrance.

Tutti: slashing strings, golden brass.
The chorus clears its throat.
A snare drum taps for battle.
Piano, drum and chorus form a triangle of sound.
(The heart dismayed: we have no choice but to enter life.)
A fury of drums begins a dance.
(What path leads to freedom?)
Trumpets.


Mrs. Porter
Who would want this music? What do I get out of it from my seat in the 12th row as I follow the words in the program? It moves my thoughts to places I’ve never been. A picture of low-level order in sound and language.
I don’t like it. It should be much better. My thoughts stay in my own sphere while Threadly’s circulate around the world and contribute to our noisy bottomless bewilderment.
One of the sadnesses of work is when something is done well and no one likes it. What’s worse is when people pretend to like it.
I have other sayings to go with that one.
Lives are complicated tangles of relationships from far-ago past to present. I have relatives posted about the hall. We don’t all think alike, so Composer Threadly, striving from the middle shelf to the top brings in peculiar complexities. Who cares about what happened or didn’t at the beginning of our mess? We need help right now – or else to be left alone.
How did I become dry and cynical? I need to recover my peace and bring my neighbors joy. No wonder my relatives disperse themselves.
I’ll break through the sludge in my brain. I don’t suppose this piece of musical over-ambition will help me.

A clamorous medley:
A song of Nimrod, Oriental gongs,
Unexpected sounds
With intricate rhythms throughout.
And then one comes to the way.
(O, memory, bring us to fellowship and peace.)
Streams of living sound hint of water.
Diminuendo. Applause.

Daisy
The shell of this work is a picture of history and eternity. The kernel is one man’s view of what we’ve said over the years about the container that encloses us and protects us against the wilds of infinity. His befuddlement, anger, terror…words…beauty.
I wander through the world Threadly created for me – that I create for myself. I see my history and my future – in pearl, in coral red – waves of color – a faint fragrance of cedar, a taste of salt, corridors lined with petrified wood – tiny bright lights.
People gathered in groups that have no contact with each other – yet. But I am in them all and remain myself throughout. For my whole life. I will be myself wherever I go. A miracle of sorts. What will I do with this self? Hug it or spread it around? Hold on to me or serve – to give and lead, like Threadly.
Eternity, so large and immeasurable – we have a few facts and a skeleton of interpretation. Universe so large, yet all the words anyone has heard of are on earth or come from the earth. God knows all words and languages and everything that happens. We walk humbly before him – agape with awe and rejoice and pray that the seaweed of daily life won’t choke us.


ABRAHAM AND SARAH
I know you’re displeased with me, Mary Beth. Let me explain why I haven’t called.
I introduced you to the Claymores a while back, Harold and Jocelyn, my friends who made biopics years ago – Napoleon and Josephine, then the Lincolns. They called me last year for advice because they wanted a spiritual theme with universal reverberations. I suggested Abraham and Sarah and a story from the culture the two of them escaped. I put together a scenario and gave it to a young screenwriter who’d just finished his studies. A cable network took the script, hired my two friends, and sent fifty people to Lebanon. Howard and Jocelyn called me after they’d been there a week, but not to talk about the film.
They’ve worked hard for decades and mostly avoided the trouble that befalls many actors after the age of fifty. All North America still knows their names. “It’s a scandal,” Jocelyn said. “We have money, health, and busy minds, but our talent for love is shriveling. Every conversation ends in a squabbling fit.”
“Worse than that,” Howard raised his voice a notch. “Shouting matches.”
“I never shout,” Jocelyn corrected him. “Years without rest have caught up with us.”
We’d been friends and colleagues off and on for two decades. We worked on a film during the months the country dragged itself away from our last Asian war and other projects later.
Two scripts I wrote in my late thirties made money. With a steady income from investments, I dabble in my favorite subjects – ancient history and how the hidden God reveals himself and the troubles that people who follow him get into.
I told Jocelyn and Howard that most couples pass through choppy spells, as my own experiences attest, but adversity can help us build a sturdy love.
“Here we are making a film in the Middle East....,” Howard said.
Jocelyn interrupted to clarify what he meant, “...not far from where Roland was shot in Iraq. That hasn’t helped us.”
“Surely not,” I said. I was with them when Roland, their only child, died in a military hospital. I can still see the staff and volunteers moving quietly about; I shared the numbness of the family as they clung to each other. Now I realized that I’d unwittingly contributed to their discomfort by arranging a situation that was awkward and painful. What could I do to help them? “How is your film going?” I asked.
“The director’s reached a stone wall,” Howard said sullenly, as if he blamed me.
I knew what the problem was. The screenwriter and I hadn’t done a good job integrating the two parts of the script and the director couldn’t decide which was more important – Sarah and Abraham or the secular setting, partly based on the historical record, that we put them in:
A war with Amorite tribes
Who’d been pestering Ur
Lasted longer than anyone expected.
King Isin went to the front with his troops.
The Amorites continued to resist.
It took Isin and his men several days
To soften them up.

“Our challenge is not to recover our old love,” Jocelyn said in her vanilla-smooth voice “but create a stronger bond than we’ve ever had.”
“We should spend a year or two away from each other,” Howard said.
“I know a few couples who tried that and never got back together.” Jocelyn lowered her voice and softened it. “You know we can’t separate. Our agent has lined up stage work in New York and London.”
“It’s always been a marriage of convenience,” Howard grumbled with an air of finality. Actors often thrash around while they’re learning a role. He’d never portrayed a man of faith and the challenge made him ornery.
“We got along fairly well before Roland died,” Jocelyn said with a grieving sharpness. “We have a choice – run away or make our marriage better.”

Sarah asked if he was sure he’d heard correctly.
It was a privilege, he said,
That God should claim such earthy folk as they.
He wanted to obey these new instructions.
“But to kill!” she exclaimed, “and after His promises.
I wish He’d spoken this to me.”
It was time for sleep, said Abraham.

I am poured out like water.

I learn slowly, Mary Beth. The years have taught me about human nature – the rewards we lust for, our sacrifices and compromises. I can imagine a rich man’s life or someone burdened with trouble. I understand the actor’s calling – what it means to become another person for a few hours a day. I know what happens when love fizzles out. But how do parents feel when their only son dies in combat? Badly enough to let their marriage sink? What will heal their wound? I began to think about ways to help them.


Victory worked on Isin like a drug.
Instead of heading back to Ur
As he’d planned and promised,
He sent for supplies and marched on.
They subdued one tribe and city
And another and another.
Bodies of wounded and dying
Littered roads and fields.
Isin didn’t listen to advisers
Or heed the pleas of his wife.

I’ve confronted a few challenges, Mary Beth, and haven’t always come out ahead. I feel at home with reading, study, creative thought. I can bring two time periods together in my head, for example, and see where they coalesce and diverge, but it took me the longest time to find a link between Ur 4000 years ago and today. I was stumped a second time, though not surprised, when I couldn’t lead the Claymores to the strength of love they craved. I’ve never kept a relationship going myself. I’ve floundered...till you came along.
The Creator and Sustainer whom I think about from various angles brings millions of unlike things together into a unified whole, keeps it going, and by grace solves problems every day that perplex the likes of you and me. Thoughts of his ability should make us humble.


While the sun warmed the land of Canaan the next day,
He got their things together: wood for fire,
A donkey fed and saddled, a newly-sharpened knife.
They had some conversation on the road,
As Isaac learned about prayer and sacrifice,
And silence, too, for Abram kept the reason for
Their journey to himself.

All my bones are out of joint.

“I can see you have a problem,” I said gin
gerly, inching toward a suggestion. “Please be patient while I work out a new theme. “I’m not the first to say so, but I see two ways of thinking about life, two paths, two conflicting strands that weave through history. The 4000 year old war in Mesopotamia that takes up half your film stands for the world that Sarah and Abraham left to lead lives of faith. Isin has had more successors than anyone can count, including the tyrant and his minions whom Roland and hundreds of others died fighting. The other path reaches us from Abraham and the promises God made to him that he would start a great nation of faithful people that would last forever, mostly invisible to history, and that abides by mercy, pardon, love, and faith. We don’t see this nation, but we feel its presence. Both paths will continue to the end of time. Then there will be only one.

The situation turned against Isin before long.
An enemy leader, as gifted as he,
Brought the Amorite tribes together.
Gungunum and his men pushed Isin back.
He lost the territory he’d gained.
The Amorites moved into Ur.
Crunch of armor,
Clink and clash of swords,
Shouts, dust, blood,
Clumps of bodies
On roads and in pastures.
Gungunum took prisoners,
Sacked neighborhoods, set fire to marketplaces.
Ur was in worse shape after several years of fighting
Than before Isin began his crusade.
An Amorite killed his oldest son
Ten leagues from the palace.


Neither Jocelyn nor Howard said anything for half a minute or so – a long silence when you’re on the phone. I thought they might be taking in what I said, but it didn’t sound like it. Civilized folks can be the most wounding, because we suppress our firepower and speak in driblets, leaving our victims to guess what’s on our minds. Once in a while, we unleash a verbal thunderbolt that rattles someone’s nervous system.
“I can’t count on Jocelyn to do one thing she promises.” Howard’s voice was rough and weary.
“No one could ever be reliable,” Jocelyn said, “who has to live near your superior attitude.”
An acid flow of recrimination swept down the phone line.
“I wonder about your judgment,” Jocelyn snapped, creating an effect you rarely see in her work, but when the situation calls for it, the chill she creates can stun an audience. “You’re the one who said Roland should go into the service. I wonder if you’re trying to get rid of me, too.”
“I resent that,” Howard said. “She’s always making comments like that.”
“Not always,” Jocelyn said. “I didn’t mean what I said just then. I’m sorry.”


They found a hill on the third day. Abraham bade
His servant wait till they’d said their prayers.
“We have the fire and the wood,” the boy observed
When they were halfway up, “but I still don’t see
A goat to sacrifice.”
“The Lord will find the goat he wants,” said Abraham.

My tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth

“At least you’re talking to each other,” I said, guarded, not sure if their piercing style would lead to plus or minus. I asked them to meander with me again. “Suppose we’re not happy that daily living roughs us up and we want some rest for mind and nerves. Can we find a crossroads where earth and spirit intersect? A link that joins them?”
“What on earth are you babbling about?” Howard growled.
“I imagine Sarah and Abraham had days like this,” Jocelyn mused in a tone of lamentation, though I doubted she was as resigned to fate as she pretended.
“Not just days with us.” I pictured an angry look flicker across Howard’s face. “A whole marriage.”
“You know that isn’t so, Howard, dear. We’ve had good years.”

Many of his own people said that
Isin was cruel and vindictive.
A few in his entourage plotted against him.
What inner error led him to war?
Why did he lose?
He grieved for the suffering of his people.
The deaths of children touched him.


Howard and Jocelyn seemed to have released all their bile. “What do you mean by a link?” Sarah asked.
I’ve always been shy at speaking about my faith. I shrink back – ashamed? – because plenty of folks think poorly of you if you mention the Cross. I know their arguments – a crutch, you can never prove it, primitive blood theology, a fading way of life. Why do I bother with what heaven’s critics say? It’s because I live in the world. I want friends, not people pushing me away. Then, too, I’m partly of the same mind as they. I found the courage of the faithful at least for a few minutes, though, and said Heaven can take away what we love the most and also heal us.
“That has nothing to do with our problem,” Howard said, perturbed again. “I think I’ll call a taxi.”
“You don’t understand how desperate your situation is,” I pushed him. “You’ll dry up if you don’t learn to forgive.” (That goes for you and me, too, Mary Beth.)

They made a wooden altar when they reached the top.
“The Lord gave promises concerning you,”
Abraham said, “That he intends to keep.
If I take your life, he’s testing me and
Will raise you from the dead.” But then:
“Oh, Abraham,” he heard a whisper in his ear.
“Yes, here I am,” he said. “Don’t lift your hand
Against the boy.” He felt his heart swell.

They have pierced my hands and my feet.

Howard settled down. “Aside from work, Jocelyn and I are helpless at managing basics – when it comes to ordinary life, we’re members of the audience.” This remark surprised me, since I’d never known Howard to criticize himself.
“You’ll never find anything better,” Jocelyn said, “than a steady, warm, loving friendship between a man and a woman.”
“I thought we were getting used to separate roads,” Howard countered and then said to me. “You should come to see us. Talk to our director and help Jocelyn and me hash things out.”
Their stupid problem was starting to irritate me.


“I had a good beginning,” Isin said.
“Education, training, ideals.
I looked for projects the people would like.
I wanted Ur’s greatness to shine.
I’d discovered that life is flawed: famine,
Drought, children dying in misery.
War seemed the only way out.”
Isin shifted from anger to despondency.
Amorite soldiers took Ur street by street.
Isin and his people were trapped.
He never imagined life in the presence of God,
Who would have shown him a better destiny
Than the one he thought up on his own.

I raised my voice, a show of indignation Howard didn’t expect. Neither did I. “If you’re so hard-headed that you can’t see that Jocelyn wants to start over with you, maybe you really should break up.” I slipped, too, from the standard of compassion I’d set for myself.
“I like what Howard suggested,” Jocelyn said in a quiet voice, “that you fly out to see us.”
“We should get some sleep,” Howard said. “We need to report to the set early tomorrow.”
“If nothing else,” Jocelyn added, “our arguments will help us bring life to Sarah and Abraham, who must have had their ups and downs.”
“They had faith, too,” I reminded them.
“They never actually lost their son,” Jocelyn pointed out with a sharp tang of bitterness. “Our problem is much harder. Grief empties us. And constant reminders of Roland in this film.”
“The sort of calamity it’s hard to get over,” I agree. “I like to remember that God lost a Son in a war, too, then brought him back to life. He promises he won’t forsake anyone who trusts his power to restore, that he will create another, better world that he wants to fill with people eager to follow him.”
“Come to see us,” Howard growled. I heard a click.


Still lashed upon the wooden altar,
Isaac told his father to look behind him.
A ram caught by its horns was hidden in a thicket.
The angel spoke again – about blessings,
Descendants, heritage, and faith.
A sigh escaped the old man’s soul
He freed his son, who trembled from their brush
With God, and killed the ram instead.
While homeward bound, he spoke about
The work that Isaac soon would do,
And seeing Sarah on the road, he waved;
She ran to greet her family home.
“He kept his promise after all,
As I prayed he would.”

I can count all my bones.

I booked a flight and phoned the film’s director. I got to Beirut the next Monday and was on the set hours later. I watched a scene that featured a mass of dying soldiers in which Jocelyn and Howard didn’t have much to say.
I saw more aimless running around than I liked, irreverent and frantic because none of the company believed that what they were doing was vital – just work to finish quickly that had no profundity or significance.
The director called for multiple retakes, adjusting different details each time so that the scene would gleam when the film was done. Crew and cast were exhausted and tempers short until the director said he was satisfied, at which point actor-corpses got up from the ground. Someone made a crack about a resurrection.
I helped the director with the next-to-last scenes in Ur, which go something like this:

Gungunum and his troops occupy the city.
The cameras show stone buildings
With ornate carvings,
People strutting or dragging their feet,
No blood on the streets
Or gold and silver either.
Gungunum speaks to the people
From a balcony. He looks
Strong, proud, but not invincible.
It’s beyond the film, but his successors
Failed to hold his conquests.
Hammurabi came in later.
The whole world knows about him.

When the film comes out, the last sequence will show Sarah, Abraham, and Isaac making good lives in Canaan, still pretty much on their own under the guidance of the God they never saw but who spoke to them with comfort and strength.
Turning, I saw Jocelyn and Harold beside me. “No wonder they left Ur,” Jocelyn said. “To find a better way than politics and war. Not that they escaped for long...”
She fumbled for words – rare for her. Howard helped her. “They were promised abundance. They’d start a great nation. A blessing to others.”
I wanted to bring up my metaphor again before we parted – two nations that exist side by side and shape the story of the world. One is prominent, the other modest, one is visible, the other beyond the reach of our senses. The two come together in the Son of God, toward whom Abraham and Sarah looked in faith.
Howard didn’t say anything. He gazed at an invisible spot in the distance beyond the scene of the staged battle.
“You’re being sent on an errand yourselves,” I suggested, “that you haven’t foreseen. It will heal you and benefit others.”
“But we’re performers,” Jocelyn said with an air of exasperation.
“Exactly,” I reassured her. “I’ll write a script about your life with Howard and his with you and how the two nations touched your lives. You’ll star in your own stories and show that the power of Love caught you by surprise and healed you. The ending will uplift the perplexed.”
“Who’ll bother to come to that?” Howard asked.
“Millions,” I said.
Howard winked at Jocelyn and they smiled at one another and at me. “How’s Mary Beth?” Jocelyn asked. They didn’t want me just to talk away like a hypocrite to whom words come easily. They needed to see how I applied the remedy I offered them to your situation and mine.
“It’s smooth going again,” I said. “I’m flying to her place on the east coast next week.”

I will tell of your name to my brethren.

SECOND CHANCE

1.

The sea roiled, the wind bit;
A gull swerved near your house.

“We’ll watch the storm,” you said,
To ease a dullness
That’s come between us,
“And talk things over.”

We’d hoped for better weather
Than the storm that kept us in,
So we could walk in the woods,
Picnic on the beach, and then at sunset
Let our joy in each other romp and ring
Through town like bells.
Instead, stuck inside, we made
Ourselves uneasy with talk and silence.
I wondered if we’d
Part eagerly Sunday evening,
Glad the weekend was over
Or linger on your doorstep,
Caught between embrace and farewell,
Two wanderers past forty
Thunder-struck with love?

2.

“I’ve been so busy with my work.”
I told you, “that I haven’t thought
About romance after my marriage collapsed.
Now new ideas are coming, thanks to you.
Do you mind if I speak up?”

You inched away, pensive, and gazed at me,
Open, compassionate,
As if you understood the mixed feelings
That hobbled me.
“I had my doubts,” you said, “that you’d ever
Break out of your beloved cocoon.
I can’t wait to hear what’s on your mind.”

“I don’t know another woman like you,”
I said. “I think about you all the time.
Are we ready for a new romance –
Different and better than the others? ”

“I’m touched,” you said, “but relationships
Are difficult. I doubt I’ll marry again.”
Your answer struck at my hopes. No matter
How much I’ve been through I can still feel like
A teenager, crawling into himself.

3.

A while later, you added, “I wouldn’t be
The easiest person you’ve had to deal with.
I have moods and weaknesses, too, especially
When I remember storms that
Took the longest time to quiet down –
Friendships that dried up,
A husband who couldn’t resist
A woman’s smile. A fiancé who
Drank too much. I sometimes say
I’ve failed at the best parts of life.”
“I can’t claim perfection either,” I replied,
Understating the case.
“But I’m not afraid to say that
I could love you in the wink of an eye.

4.

The wind that swept across the bay
Whirled through the woodland,
Toppled trees, clogged paths,
Whipped a skirl of last year’s leaves.

You said (hoping I’d see you right),
“I’m not cheerful every moment of the day.
I don’t force feelings or smother them
And never pretend love when it doesn’t exist.”

You didn’t say – but I could tell –
That despite the ache of broken things
You reach out in steady hope.
To calm a nasty day,
Turn my knotted, rain-bound feelings
Into a kaleidoscope of joyful musings.
You soften a dry heart,
Clotted with routine,
Then send astringent gusts
Of your own to stir my thoughts
And ruffle my feelings.
You’re the one I want to love.

5.

After the rain stopped,
We went outside to check
The damage to your plants.

“You’re the one I prefer,” I said.
I see a trace of smile as if you
Wanted to trust what I was saying.
The distance between us lessened.
A chord struck, our thoughts connected,
Feelings spun like pinwheels
And ran like thawing streams.
We came together
As one for a moment.
Truth and senses coalesced
And we became what we were meant to be.

6.

Clouds rushed in again,
The wind rose, cold rain returned.
We moved inside
And you made us
A salad and lentil soup.

“It’s obvious what you’re doing,” you said.
“You want to help me so we can build
The steady love that neither of us ever had.
But what about doubts and storms?
We’d raise a hurricane ourselves
If feelings ever seized and tightened…
And one of us would leave.”
“We’d work through that storm, too,”
I assured you. “Heavy winds eventually settle down
Since love is the strongest part.”

“People often speak the word ‘love,’ you said
“But what do we mean by it?
Sadness is gray,
Disappointment’s a heavy stone
That takes forever to roll away,
Discontent a ball of wire.
Love is strongest,
a tempest, a blaze,
that we should never confuse with
the high winds of infatuation.
If those come our way, we’ll
Look for shelter in good sense.
Best, love is a gleam of
comprehension in grimy clouds,
unshakable help in a hurricane.
And it never holds a grudge.
Does that make sense to you?”
I said “yes” with my own attempt at picture-language:
“Love shines and warms
Like a sun that doesn’t scorch.”
I didn’t fare well, you see,
Since you’re the poet, after all.
I’m not a quitter, though.
“I’ll find a way to show you
The picture I have of us together,” I said
Even if it takes the rest of my life.”
“Don’t wait,” you replied. “Speak up.”
“I think you’re terrific,” I tell you –
The best I could find to say just then.
7.

Ghosts have started to drift away
And reassuring tangible things
Move in to take their place.
The touch of your hand
Lightens my memories
Now that we’re apart.
I cherish the caress of your voice,
The brush of your lips, the grace of your moving,
And the courage to cope
That you pass along to me.
I’m glad you’re my friend.
For one weekend at least
You gave me what I missed.
f I’ve done anything for you,
Then love will shimmer in the shadings
Of our thoughts and in the promise
That we won’t postpone another weekend
With just us two
For longer than our friendship can abide.

Impressum

Tag der Veröffentlichung: 24.06.2011

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