The Tiny Petals Twirled by the Fingers of a Young Breeze;

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Poems by Richard Alishio

Even

Even in the falling of the pink snow,

The tiny petals twirled by the fingers of a young breeze;

Even as the drifts of cherry blossoms build

At the edges of the cobbled walk;

Even as the nude sun in the noon sky

Arouses all the people in the park;

Even as the easiness of Spring

Unfolds within a winter-shuttered soul;

Even on the branches of the gnarled wood

Where the finches skitter and sing;

And even here beneath my naked feet

As the lush grass moistens each step—

The throbbing of sensation

And the thrilling of the day

Hold within themselves their mortal opposites.

Even as the snapshots of a picnic

Capture all the spirits of the recent dead;

Even as the happy banter of a kissing couple

Decays into the agony of accusation;

Even in the rising of the hyacinths,

Where the stench of time suborns the flowers’ scent;

Even while the swaddled infant nurses at his mother’s breast,

The tyrant peeks around the blanket’s edge;

Even as these words are slowly pictured in your eyes,

They quickly pass into a puzzled memory;

And even in the evening of my life,

I feel the evenness of silence fill my harrowed heart.

The Hole in the Woods

It is time to return to the hole in the woods

The deep and the cold of the hole in the woods

Time to return to live in the dark

In the dark of the hole in the ground of the woods.

I lived for a time in the light of the day

In the heat of the sun and the freshest of air

And walked among those who spoke in a voice

That sounded so certain and easy and light.

I rose for a time and dressed in the clothes

Of those who knew who and those who knew how,

But now I must go to my place in the woods

And slink to the bottom of the hole I have dug.

Down in the earth with the smell of the dirt

And the rustling sound of the worms and the grubs

And the sneakiest glance of the possums and rats

Peering across the edge of the hole

In the cold of the night in the hole in the woods.

And there I will sit in the shadows of day

And sleep in the night of the moonless sky

Grieving and weeping and blaming myself

For losing my chance to breathe in the heat

Of the days and the days of the days I once had

With the others who know how to live in the light

Of the sun and the sky and the blueness of life

Instead of down in the dank of the clay

That makes up the walls of the hole in the woods.

And here through the tears that roll off of my chin

I mutter the names of the ones I once had

Who loved me and loved me until I said stop

So I could return to my hole in the floor

Of the deepest of dark in the woods.

I see by the sky in the circle above

A window that frames the life I gave up

So they could go on all safe and alone

Without being stung by the poisonous words

Spit through a dream in the dark of the night

By the one who must live in the hole in the woods.

And dreaming of dreams is what I’ll do best

Down in the hole in the dark of my soul

In the night of the whispering woods.

Hammond

In the last days of his mid-west youth,

Days drawn long with wonder and awe,

He learned the world from the passenger’s seat

Of a train in a storm in Hammond.

In Indiana in the summer

Thunderings come loud and long;

Funnels by the dozens

Nipple the sea of darkness overhead

While the trains beat out their song:

“Off to the mills—off to the mills—off to the mills,” they go.

As the workers wait impatiently at the crossing gate,

This train, bound for Chicago, skates

Lazily back and forth upon the tracks

Squeaking like a sectioned-steel snake

Passed the gassing cars.

This is not the Indiana of the cornfields,

Yet the cross currents of time and place yield

Their eerie shimmerings,

Leaving farm-boy innocence

In the eyes and heart of the man-child

Swaying in his seat in a storm in Hammond.

The swaying of the train,

A line called “South Shore,”

Lulled him into easiness and peace,

But then the vision of the city

Bore him into horror with a sudden swat,

Leaving him to feel a fright

From a quickly dying streetlight.

Past the giant smokestacks to crumbling porches

Where the laundry of the poor made colored torches

In a blur of grey-blown smoke and soot—

It is the ghetto at Chicago’s foot.

Past the vast expanses of the industries unease

Towards giant mounds of manganese

Piled high for miles in Goliath’s sandbox.

Past fifteen miles of nothing-like-a-city,

And then reaching the Chicago River’s locks

In time to see the freighters leaving their docks;

In time to ship innocence to sea.

Across the street from their homes

South Chicago city kids searched down heavy loot

Amongst the droppings of the switchyards.

Here bb-gun wars raged around the shifting boxcars,

And the only rule known was “Aim low when you shoot!”

A cruel irony grew up from the rocks:

Corn stalks in scattered patches between the tracks

Stood like lost aliens from Nature

In a sea of grease and steel;

Hog-feed seed being shipped to sea

Would spill from the seams of the strings of cars

And plant themselves,

Making something pure occur

In a land that smacked of Mars.

The storm weakened to reveal a looming cityscape

That whispered from its distance, “Escape! Escape!”

The train began to make its stops.

The man-child could see some cops

Shaking down a group of Blacks

In the empty lot across the tracks.

And then the motors of the tram turned,

And the boy had forgotten all he’d learned.