I do remember still
the old battered barn
by house No. 23,
strangely just like
the other one—
in the “inland”
village called
“A Little Patch”
from where
they arrived
after the war
to this frontier
and there soon
from “Springs”
to this place—Bor
named after pines
or what was then left
of the ancient woods,
the land where I made
my first breath and cry.
And looking back
I would have to ask
what fates or furies
drove them restless
from those fields
so picturesquely
scattered among
the ponds and
the low mounds
of the South
here to the West
cut down
from the North
by the mountains
with veins of ore,
silver, tin—uranium…
and dotted
like a poem
with some
of the smallest
medieval towns,
its words of old
so much ground,
and worn off
that it would take
an inspired poet
with a sense
yet unnamed
to run his fingers
by the lost,
though written,
and to spell it back
from its leaves
and springs
and trees
and graves?
***
Nonetheless
in that ore
and even
in that uranium
I do hear still
the old,
amorous
murmur,
for some
but a rumor
and not more
than a long
dead, deafened hint,
a sound that turns
like a wave—
of eternal ocean
and speaks
and rises
through me
with its voice
that lines up well
and comes to
sing and chant
its revived lore
and of its other
gold and ore—
and their name
so unearthed
is—Orpheus
and Orion!
***
So what furies
and what fates
were driving us
to this very coast
of Heaven—
or Hell perhaps?
And to what end,
still unheard point?
And what god
had stored it
in my soul?
But here it is,
here lies my
native town
in-between
two sides—
each of which
have loci posted
fittingly—
as Heaven
and Hell—right
there by its side.
Between those
people pass,
ever unmindful
of the go-between
who know
and can move
back and forth
both the dead
and the live—
there’s always
somewhere
some Hermes
or an Orpheus,
however disowned
or disavowed—
when, in fact,
he stands there
even now
in the figure
and disguise
of Sorela’s miner
on the roof
in my own town…
They say, one
of those pomps
and guides
cheats and trades
as he strings
his catch
like bats
stricken, blind,
while the other
crosses sacred lines
with his song and lyre
(and it must be
the very same one
which is at the square
on the façade
of the Miner’s
“Communist,”
but Neo-Greco
House—).
***
But I also remember
the old battered barn
by house No. 23—
in that hamlet nearby,
which is gone now
and has been so
for long since
it was taken down.
But when it was,
I used to sneak inside
where all was quiet
and all was dust,
and the dust swirled
in its curves and tongues,
spurts and fountains,
through the stripes of sunlight
which, in coils and whorls,
some spirit must have
lightly puffed and smoked
among beading planes,
ancient splints and planks
and the desk by the windows,
which some oils had darkened.
And the plaster in the ceiling,
having lost its shape and luster,
was already revealing much
with its gangling ribs of reed,
now dry and crackling
in staccato and broken echo
from ponds and brooks
and lives no more.
But there was I
alone and in wonder,
and through the windows
whispered grass and breeze,
and gooseberries and currants
in life’s two colors—both
white and red—from a little
fenced-in garden
kept sending me
a wordless hello,
a scent, a treat, a nod
in an entreating prayer
to be given once a voice
like the summer light that’s drawn
to and into beauty and the flowers,
or a living poem to get into—even
and a human soul—just one to connect to.
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