LITMIR.BIZ

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so I’ll begin my story with

      “Our youngest son got lost in the mountains.”

      And you’ll say, “That’s wrong.”

      So I’ll rephrase: “Our youngest son

      didn’t get lost in the mountains.”

      And you’ll say, “But that’s beside the point.”

      And I’ll say, “Someone who is not our youngest

      son got lost in the mountains.”

      “Ah,” you’ll say, “now we can get on with the tale.”

      So truth is not the exact opposite of untruth.

      The truth is hard to find.

      Or is it?

      My sentences hide the truth.

      That is my whole problem.

      The truth must lurk,

      like a trout beneath a log,

      somewhere below what I say.

      The log was once a tree.

      The log is now ashes.

      The tree, of course, had branches.

      And, in this essay, we are led to a terrible

      but inevitable pun: branching tree.

      I can do an elegant diagram of The log is ashes.

      In its geometrical neatness, it would satisfy you, my love,

      as much as whatever music you wanted to name.

      But no diagram will show my desire.

      All I can say is that my desire has about it

      its enigmas, its ambiguities.

      It has a deep structure I could never catch.

      Matters Personal

Lenses

      Galileo explored the night,

      His lens extending human sight

      Back and back toward the place

      Where time began its stately pace.

      Old Dutchman with his home-made lens,

      Leeuwenhoek found teeming fens

      In a drop of H20,

      Beasties darting to and fro.

      Trained upon a blade of grass,

      Great Grandma’s magnifying glass

      Gathered sunlight to a spot,

      Blinding pinhead, shaft white-hot.

      Through our lens, our son’s first son,

      Our miracle, our glowing one,

      Past and future gain their focus,

      A bright, melodic, fragrant locus.

With George and Mary

      Somehow the place so fits our friends:

      the quiet flow of the river,

      the elegant silver trees,

      a honker landing just now

      and drifting serenely with the current;

      the quiet flow of the music,

      the elegant, airy room,

      the easy talk resumed just now

      and drifting serenely on.

      Our friends deserve this lovely place,

      A house of understated grace,

      For all their Acts, the perfect Scene,

      A beauty joyful and serene.

Code Blue

      The soothing voice, verbal Muzak,

      Announces “Code blue. One east.”

      Some crisis—stroke or heart attack.

      “Code blue,” the Valium voice repeats.

      The young blonde doctor, so patrician,

      Crisply practices her trade

      And seems the responsible physician,

      Until she giggles at a joke I’ve made.

      “Noninvasive Procedures” says the sign,

      And so my territory is safe against attack.

      A pacifist, I sigh, obey, resign

      Myself to lying quietly upon my back,

      Looking up at the doctor’s serious face,

      Hoping that her giggle will not come,

      Apprehensive in this alien place,

      Wondering if she chews bubble gum.

Les Fleurs Sauvages

      The savage flowers of Crete,

      Geraniums, redder than Achaean blood;

      Roses, blood red,

      Clustered in the brilliant sun,

      Ready for attack.

      Oleander everywhere, scarlet phalanxes,

      Infiltrating hillsides,

      Guarding highways.

      More sun than I have ever known,

      And brighter, clearer.

      Here, just off the coast,

      Two small islands—

      The next stop Africa.

      They ski at Omolo,

      And in winter,

      The eternal shepherds

      Move their flocks

      To the coastal plain.

Mellow Drama

      “Dear Aunt and Uncle,” wrote Denise,

      Our daring, nonconformist niece,

      “I had my ears pierced. Mom and Dad

      “Didn’t know, and were they mad!

      “I bought myself a pair of earings,

      “Lipstick, ruge, and other things.

      “I had a big suprise for mama.

      “I’m staring in a mellow drama.

      “Send some fashion pictures, please.

      “From your loving niece Denise.”

      Dear Niece:

      May you be the morning star,

      Glowing in the light of dawn.

      May you be the evening star,

      Shining when the light is gone.

      May you ever be the star

      Of mellow drama all life long.

      Your loving aunt and uncle.

“But a good cigar is a smoke”

      This hoary joke

      Is worth a smile, perhaps a chuckle,

      Medicine for those who knuckle

      Under to their pumping glands

      (The covert leers, the trembling hands)—

      Not females, no: testosterone,

      The liquor that unmixed, alone,

      Taken straight,

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