Only You Could Catch Me
Only you could catch me. Auntie, this is your memory, But I’ll gladly abduct it, or Let’s say, better yet, whoever Lives longer absconds with it and Is required to tend the recollection: You, just fourteen at the bottom Of steep, basement stairs And me, just four at the top, I seized the chance of flight, Flung my little body at you, And you had no choice but to catch me. It was a good thing you were looking, But I knew only faith, not doubt. Only you could catch me. Still a child trapped like me, We recognized our comradery. Mom shrieked and swore; We escaped; we were free. Only you...
Read MoreAria
Not once have I wept over art in the Louvre, Uffizi or Met. Well, almost over van der Weyden’s Descent in the Prado, Mary’s grief, but that may have been indigestion after Madrid’s tapas, the Museum of Ham. A lithograph in Chelsea, Kathe Kollwitz’s dead mother and child splayed, stiff, discarded on the curb, brought a single, quiet tear. At the reception, the gallery on Water Street, I am at first preoccupied with drawings, paintings, prints, porcelain; delicate, curious assemblages, diminutive Constructivism; with wine, cheese and those gooey sweets with marshmallows, coconut and...
Read MoreThe Turn
Though my mother is long dead, my sister estranged, I cannot account for the specter. After over forty years, the image, the memory returns to me lately, haunting my afternoon routine, all its edges garishly distinct. The turn began at the end of summer, nineteen-seventy- two or three, the last tubing and camping trip with the Buskirk and Weaver kids, The Caves at Millwood, along the muddy Kokosing River. After one too many days of fun, fun, fun, of hotdogs and marshmallows, hair and tee shirts reeking of smoke, sticky nights in rank sleeping bags, no showers, no television, the mighty,...
Read MoreAbundance
A Wednesday in Oberlin, a warm, affable, summer day, dolce far niente, under the red umbrella, we’re al fresco at Lorenzo’s pizzeria. Bees feast, elbowing for the finest, pink hibiscus blossoms. Beneath the table, a sparrow begs, hopping to a lively mazurka. My wife objects, but I can’t resist, and toss a piece of crust, exceedingly satisfied as the tiny bird pecks at the edges of lunch. It occasionally glances at me, wary, grateful, greedy. That’s it. There’s nothing more to this inconsequential moment. This abundance is...
Read MoreThe Romantic
On bleary mornings, Eos on my way to work, twenty years, my matins, I passed a coppice, a sloughing of limbs, tall, splendid oaks, condensed diorama forest emerging from haze. I’d envision a doleful wanderer, an abbey ruin, Casper David Friedrich’s bleak, romantic painting. The modern came crashing, suddenly a rude huffing, greasy bulldozer, a hole in the ground, a house, concrete, lumber, vinyl, bramble of wire and pipe, razing my sublime, though the trees seemed glad for the company — too much gloom. Who knows? Kids may play in bits of shade, long summer...
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