Asked and Answered

(a conversation with Edward Hirsch and Clarice Lispector)

He asks for his father, lay back the darkness.
I ask for a mother,remove the scar

in the blue mist—when he says, Death
is the soul’s schooling, I see an empty room,

mock lessons, chalk dust, the work I keep
leaving undone, translations left in another tongue

where “seeping” or “slippery” walls yawn
and swallow the notches on doorframes.

I rehearse words that cloak, unstitch them
from the threads of rivers. They also dive

into themselves: into something black or ochre,
and when I put down one book, reach for another,

irremediably the world sours with someone else
asking for comfort: Why are the bolts of black cloth

lying on the shelves? That I can translate into answer:
they, too, are waiting, with arms ready to swath us

in the cold current’s swaddling.

 

Pastoral

A knoll and a field of stubble,
interstate traffic stalling in the late

April rain not noticing that all goes on
through a middle with no center.

And we are tired of another road
closing, and tired of what seems

another pre-determined journey
And we are weary of its old signs

pushing us through “no vacancy,”
while in the distance: dry thunder  

riverbed   pit             and that same crevice,
not yours, yet, flashes a warning:

here you are, gutted, singed, set adrift—