But, that's the time of day and the glass of wine talking. The poem here is almost decent, I think--simple in language and theme, a bit too similar of things I've written before. But it's nice to have written something, isn't it? Anyway, this one floated around my brain for several weeks before, once again, a writer-friend gave me the little push I needed to put it down somewhere. "Change" works on a couple of levels here, and it's the idea that I started with. In fact, the last line is how the whole poem began. The idea of having a sister in the poem appeared early on, too, as did Coltrane.
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The Change
During our summer walks my sister and I learned
to whisper the names of landmarks so that when
the day came we could find our own way home.
Our father, always several paces ahead of us, knew
each alleyway, knew who was on the other side of
each closed apartment door and each opened window.
We learned the names, too: Johnson, Kominski, at least
three Smiths. During one summer’s evening humidity
the old man stopped, so we stopped. He tilted his head
upwind toward something new. “He’s trying to play Coltrane,”
our father said. “Listen.” So we listened: not the Top 40 we
spun in the basement after school while the humidifier worked,
but to indefinable rhythms we could not yet catch. “He needs
a new reed,” our father said. “But he’s getting it. Hear that?
Hear how he held that note for almost long enough?”
My sister and I shifted our stance, ready to move on as he
tapped his foot just enough so that a passerby might notice.
The sun was nearly gone, and its light revealed the hidden
grayness deep in our father’s hair. He looked down at us,
gauged that light against our bedtime. “Another minute,”
he said. “A few more measures. Just give me those and we’ll
all go home.” He turned his good ear back toward the window
and the failing reed. “Get ready,” he said. “Listen for the change.”
1 comment:
This is a really neat poem that conjures up a lot of nostalgia for me—it makes me remember being a child and feeling my parents were an infinite source of wisdom and wonder.
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