6 Poems by Richard Fein
SEEKING A UNIVERSALLY ACCEPTED PRAYER FOR PUBLIC SCHOOLS
What is the divine name?
What is the comforting noun to invoke,
when worshipers can’t even agree on number or gender? Call to an amorphous entity—
one that is a unity with rocks, water, trees, and human souls— then where is the loving friend who listens? Call to that friend and who is called,
he, she, them?
In what direction does one call—
up to distant heaven, down to the roots in the intimate earth? Face the East and you turn away from the West. Look to the North and ignore the South.
What is the proper posture for prayer,
standing, sitting, kneeling, prostrate?
Should one be still, or dance with arms high? Should organs solemnly play or drums wildly beat? What are the standard vestments worn in the presence of a deity— Silk robes, rags,
or proper business attire
(especially when pleading for worldly success)? Should heads be covered or uncovered?
When seeking the almighty presence
should one be drafted into the company of the indifferent or gather strength through the clasped hands of true believers?
We focus on holy visions through shattered glasses. The universal prayer should be silence,
while seeking the common comprehension gleaned from daily, boring lessons.
WINTER SUNSET RESCUE
So tangled
the leafless briar branches
that what is beyond the swamp is seen only in fragments:
pieces of open field,
the evening sun glaring through twisted stems.
“Come hold me, hold me,” the plea.
With rope secured around the trunk
and vapor steaming from my mouth, I
hurl:
upwards curves the rope,
then down, down
splat into the mire that embraces her.
The quicksand gurgles,
her arms flail, again the plea,
“Come hold me, hold me.”
But the rope remains untouched.
I brace for the tension that would tighten the rope;
the sign that she was struggling to survive,
to at least grab the rope,
but the lifeline remains untouched.
I hear again the panicky plea,
“Come hold me, hold me.”
Calves, knees, thighs, breasts,
all in turn are muddied.
Her hands, her hands,
not an inch toward the rope.
Now my muscles relax.
The rope lies limp across the mud,
one end descends into the murk
around bubbles, the dying effervescence.
I release my grip, my palms striped with rope burns.
I wet my hands; the cold water dampens the throbbing.
A distant bird calls,
an owl hooting, a crow cawing?
I don’t know.
I know only this:
I couldn’t jump in and hold her.
She didn’t grab for the rope.
It’s dark.
It’s becoming too silent.
It’s becoming too cold
I must go on.
TUNDRA DREAM
I dream of tundra.
Aurora Borealis lighting storm clouds.
Snowdrifts shield dwarf willows:
some branches still beyond snow
are flayed by winds,
soon they vanish,
like a drowning man’s hands.
Droning sounds, the snow scraping against itself.
A screech, a lynx toys with a lemming
But from above an owl descends.
Talons hug the lynx’s back, neck, belly. The ascension, lynx and owl;
the fall, the owl drops its prey.
But no resurrection, instead another embrace,
as the owl recovers what is lost and rises,
the lynx streaming from its claws.
Below the lemming–
headless, already cold, still, lifeless, has become its own tombstone.
A caribou plops steaming dung, turns
to devour its own droppings before they freeze.
This is the paradise I have dreamed of, here
where fingers turn white then blue,
and tingling subsides to numbness.
And then I become warm;
the snow, a blanket
the ice-hard ground, a bed.
Limbs vanish from my body, sleepy, sleepy,
and around me always the wind hums.
But
she shoves aside the powdery shroud,
hauls, yanks, pulls me toward the igloo,
labors me through the opening.
Inside moisture, warmth,
and darkness.
Darkness until a blubber lamp is lit.
Warm tallow rubbed on my face; sweet pain rekindled. The pleasure.
Jet black hair, breasts bared, dark eyes, trickling milk.
She did not let me lie down
under the Borealis above, the snowdrifts below.
204 SOPHISMS
“The moral issues,” he said, “are clear. Black and white, plainly contrasted like squares on a chessboard.
There’s nothing further to discuss.”
Then I simply asked how many squares are there on a chessboard.
“Ah, sixty-four,” he pontificated.
His arms folded, his face straining to give the thinnest grin. “Now let’s get back to the point.”
What about the board as a whole?
“O.K. sixty-five, now let’s get on with it, back to the main points.”
I said that we were discussing squares not points.
“The issues are clear, right is right, wrong is wrong.”
What about the smaller squares within the big gameboard, the two, three, four, five, six, seven, sided squares all nested within the eight-square? How many squares of black and white are right before your eyes?
“Your point,” he scolded, “is to confuse and distract.”
Suddenly I was alone.
So I studied the board slowly and carefully, with the barest comprehension. The number of points where the different colored squares touch remains the same no matter how you frame the squares.
LOVER’S BRIDGE
My eyes
saw not behind surfaces;
my ears
heard only the oscillations of atoms in air. What tone
of sound, of light
roused my sleeping perceptions?
None.
To me
her eyes were always wide and loving,
her voice
always soft and soothing.
The rupture came suddenly.
Like some bridge too rigidly built,
impervious to gales, never moving an inch,
with tension testing its tensile strength,
its inner stress unnoticed unless
an ear would have touched the cold metal frame to hear
the whining made by the metallic bonds twisting, but no ear heard.
Snap!
It’s over.
We are both alone
on opposite sides.
SILVERFISH
Not sweet like the bees
nor itchy like the mosquitoes
nor “ah” inspiring like the butterflies
nor so blasted everywhere like the ants;
neither do they spoil a meal by
crawling in it. We call them primitive,
and to us they’re invisible,especially to those who don’t read.
Little is written about them in books
though in books they certainly are.
The Koran, Bhagavid-gita, Talmud,
they’re catholic in their tastes.
They’ll unbind any tome in time.
To them it’s all thought for food.
The last grand supper will come eventually.
They’ll leave our bodies to the worms.
It’s our immortality they hunger for.
The final period will be their droppings.