Last night, Ginger and I got to go to the Red Sox game, thanks to our friends Fez and Maggie. It was our first time in the park in five years. As I reflected on the train ride back today, I channelled Robert Frost.
Stopping by Fenway on a Chilly Evening
Whose house this is I think I know—
Been here a hundred years or so;
It’s so familiar stopping here
To watch the game and feel the glow.
We Boston fans all think it great
When Papi steps up to the plate—
Tonight he even stole a base,
And helped our team to dominate.
We’re just beginning his last year,
So strange to think he won’t be here
To swing and smile and raise our hopes
And call us all to persevere.
Ortiz, he stands so Boston strong,
And on this night we all belong;
So good—we all can sing along,
So good—we all can sing along.
I love to tell the story
says the old hymn—
not I love to tell the
doctrine; we do well to
read in the beginning
as another way of saying
once upon a time.
like frederick said faith is
not so far away from
the willing suspension
of disbelief, which is to say
being willing to trust
the story of mangers and
miracles of prophets
and parables, of golden
calves and broken folks,
is to find ourselves grabbing
at coats in the crowd,
or waiting for help by
the troubled waters
and struggling a bit
when he turns and asks,
do you want to get well?
the first time I saw John Prine
we were both much younger
he sang fish and whistle—you
forgive us and we’ll forgive
you—and then the one about
the angel that I learned too
the last time I saw him was
the night before his cancer
had returned and he sang
for almost three hours, as
though his life—and ours—
were riding on the melodies
I thought I had seen him for
the last time—I think he did
too—my friend Terry and I
drove home talking about
dreams rolling by, the speed
of the sound of loneliness
today I found just one thing
that I can hold on to: he is
playing not so far away
come September—one more
chance to sing along again as
though time can never fade
or perhaps it’s because I know
it’s like he says, memories
that can’t be boughten—I’ll
go to the show and then
we’ll say goodbye and go back
home when the day is done
I started the day by going to the gym
(things I rarely write for 400, Alex),
wishing the process of lessening my
presence on the planet did not involve
rooms with pumped up jams and rows
of televisions blasting morning shows.
I came prepared with headphones and
the podcast of a poet—Mary Oliver,
and as the soft animal of my body
began to pour with sweat i listened
to her talk about a grasshopper
eating birthday cake from her hand.
Four miles later, I had worked up a
sweat going absolutely nowhere,
except for the journey of her words,
the exercise of the heart and mind
that lifted the weight of my world,
stretched my wild and precious life.
I spent the first ten days of April back in Durham, doing some book things, some cookies business, and seeing good friends in a place that feels like home to me. In the process, I haven’t kept my promises to write each day during April. Here is my defense.
wordless
I know I’ve been silent, even after I said I would write a poem everyday,
there are blanks where poems should have been.
because I thought about a question I once heard asked of photographers:
what’s the best picture you didn’t take?
and I chose to stay up late talking and laughing rather than writing,
It”s Opening Day . . .
(well, the Red Sox start tomorrow)
I have moved from coffee shop
to brewery trying to catch
the metaphor.
Is it as simple as
the pitcher misses the strike zone,
the catcher misses the tag,
and I miss my mother,
who has been gone half a season
and won’t be here to see
Big Papi take his last swing
at Fenway?
I had every intention of using National Poetry Writing Month as an impetus to keep me writing regularly during April, and then I spent the day traveling yesterday and missed Day One. So, I will begin my quest on Day Two.
suspended animation
I’m sitting at a shared table
late on a Saturday morning
in a coffee shop born of dreams.
the couple next to me are
talking over their computers;
the man on the other side is
whispering into his headset,
as the rest of the room swirls
with people staring into screens
and smiling into faces; one
baby is asleep in the crowd.
above us all hangs a small troupe
of wax figures, colored with
spices and caught in a fearless
free fall of hopeful abandon–
or so it seems from below,
as I ponder what lies ahead.
the daffodils bow their heads in the early morning rain without explanation, on this day after resurrection. I am left to find resonance in both reverence of redemption and the weight of the water. the raindrops hang like tears on the window, or tiny jewels, depending on where I am. my coffee cup is as empty as the tomb, telling me it is time to go out into the rain, to take my place with the flowers.
Because I have now lived through the death of both of my parents, I understand more of how the disciples might have felt after Jesus’s death and burial. One of the hardest things has been to mark time without them. The first morning. The first month. The first year, and then the second.
I think about them waking up on the morning after Jesus’s death. They didn’t know what to do. The life they had come to expect and expected to keep living disappeared in an afternoon. They were lost. And then the sun came up Sunday morning, and Mary went to the tomb only to find it empty and have Jesus call her by name.
Over the years, one of the quotes during Advent that holds me out to the love of God comes from Meister Eckhardt who said,
What good is it to me if Mary gave birth to the Son of God centuries ago and I do not give birth to the child of God in my time and in my culture?
I came back to the quote tonight, thanks to my soundtrack for tonight: another Bob Bennett song called “Still Rolls the Stone.” Sometimes the word still means quiet. Not moving. But in Bob’s words, it means continuing, connected. God is still speaking. Love is still stronger than death.
I tore off my grave clothes And cried a pool of tears For the voice of the Living One Who spoke the stars and spheres Has called me from my darkness And led me to this place Where the dead leap And the blind see His face
Still rolls the stone, still rolls the stone Still rolls the stone from the grave
Hearts aflame with mercy Like the sun in midnight sky While the doubter shrugs his shoulders And the cynic wonders why But as it is in Heaven So now we proclaim The Lord tells us here to do the same
Christ is risen indeed. May the reality of the resurrection lead us to offer life wherever we can. May we continue to do all that we can to remind one another the stone is still rolling.
