THREE POEMS
Big Boy Blue
Big boy blue, when you were borndid you weigh ten pounds, or a dozen? And were youthe color of a summer skytill your big lungs took your firstFebruary first breath? The fire,this morning, looks like hair, growingfast motion and writhing. When you were a child,did you look at a mother with writhing snakes growingout of her head?to stone, but to language, you turned to airand water with the wind’s writing on them.When we first met, you seemed like a wolf in wolf’sclothing of beauty, a man with the freshancient mouth of an early singer,a man who was ready for a woman friend.Above the pond, this morning, there are figures, bentforward, made of breath, going eastfrom west, as if on a long march.Wherever people were walking for freedom,you would walk with them. Old Man Blue,the sheep’s in the meadow, the cow’s in the corn,the beaver is moving slowly acrossthe upside-down sky, through the clouds, trailingher cape of wake. How can it beyou are not in the world, only your longhusk, your music all poured out,safely decanted, into the rich coldcellar of reds we would drink and describe—a cabernet with the bouquet of aschool playground in the rain, afterthe bell has rung, a sauvignon like aNo. 2 pencil lead, stabbed decadesago, into my knee, or the saltand money Odysseus smelled on the side of thesheep. I’m blowing my horn for you,again, in a world where you cannot hear it—you are supine, washed, clothed in linen, beinglowered into the mountain like an undergroundstream we will come put our ears to your chestthe rest of our lives. The sheaves are in,the sun is setting, like a meteor, deepinto the earth, and where is the onewe love? the one who looked after us?He is under the haystack, fast asleep.
