Post by MoonyLuna on Dec 29, 2008 11:54:47 GMT -5
Summer Mix
For seven dog years, Uncle Mark, I've meant
to say my god that summer mix you sent
is awesome. Every song's a winner on it.
Telephone Road should not exist. I mean
how can a sound so cluttered sound so clean
I could eat Brian Wilson's dinner on it?
How can one note so clarify another,
brother once-removed? I love my mother
and father and some Simon & Garfunkel
records but, off the record, who are they?
Novelists say context, painters say
perspective and the rest of us say uncle.
I'm on the level part of the back lawn
with Richard Wilbur, but your mix is on,
and his collected magisteria
are going to be closing for the day.
It's mostly homely here. The house is slab,
cinder and cedar. Some of the grass is crab.
The runner that's about to grab
the downspout is, I think, wisteria,
so that worked out. And Dylan is a faint
buzz from the bedroom Sonja's trying to paint.
But she'll be opening a window soon,
and when she does, because this is an essay,
it will become the mouth that sings his messy
Dignity to the afternoon.
Looking Up
In just a moment Gavin will explain
why he keeps looking up: because no plane
is coming. Then, because there's no plan B
to shift to, he'll be shifting to one knee.
The words for which the sky is at a loss
some guy will find this evening, draped across
the roof of his disinterested Cape Cod,
as though it were a message meant for God
alone. It wasn't, though, and you know Gavin
well enough to know what he would've given
to see that sign arrive, to see you see
it sailing into legibility.
That's why, before you say a word, you've got
to let him walk you through the whole foiled plot,
and act as if you can't believe he'd try
to pull I LOVE YOU BETH across the sky.
Copyright
Eric McHenry
For seven dog years, Uncle Mark, I've meant
to say my god that summer mix you sent
is awesome. Every song's a winner on it.
Telephone Road should not exist. I mean
how can a sound so cluttered sound so clean
I could eat Brian Wilson's dinner on it?
How can one note so clarify another,
brother once-removed? I love my mother
and father and some Simon & Garfunkel
records but, off the record, who are they?
Novelists say context, painters say
perspective and the rest of us say uncle.
I'm on the level part of the back lawn
with Richard Wilbur, but your mix is on,
and his collected magisteria
are going to be closing for the day.
It's mostly homely here. The house is slab,
cinder and cedar. Some of the grass is crab.
The runner that's about to grab
the downspout is, I think, wisteria,
so that worked out. And Dylan is a faint
buzz from the bedroom Sonja's trying to paint.
But she'll be opening a window soon,
and when she does, because this is an essay,
it will become the mouth that sings his messy
Dignity to the afternoon.
Looking Up
In just a moment Gavin will explain
why he keeps looking up: because no plane
is coming. Then, because there's no plan B
to shift to, he'll be shifting to one knee.
The words for which the sky is at a loss
some guy will find this evening, draped across
the roof of his disinterested Cape Cod,
as though it were a message meant for God
alone. It wasn't, though, and you know Gavin
well enough to know what he would've given
to see that sign arrive, to see you see
it sailing into legibility.
That's why, before you say a word, you've got
to let him walk you through the whole foiled plot,
and act as if you can't believe he'd try
to pull I LOVE YOU BETH across the sky.
Copyright
Eric McHenry