Dear Mr. and Mrs. Loving,
I can comprehend aloneness,
but your aloneness is too hard
for me. Never symbols, you were
just a name, just two persons
among the millions. Two persons
without defense.
Your helplessness faced force.
But obedience, endurance,
were the only choice, I guess.
There had to be anger, too,
some grudge in the obeying.
Later years, all the dust laid down,
your lives went on so quiet.
And so I’m left to wonder
what you cooked, and ate,
how you kept your house, where
you saved your money, worked.
I know that you had children,
a common having, as are long years
of widowhood and tending graves.
Now I’ve come to comprehend
your mystery, the final aloneness —
just the privacy of ordinary lives,
the equal, sometimes joyous,
hum-drum of us all —
coffee in the morning, toast,
fix the car, water the tomatoes,
grieve, complain about the heat —
all these accessories of love.
(It took me nine years to write this poem about Mr. and Mrs. Loving whose Supreme Court case ended any ban on marriages between persons of different races. I was and still am afraid of being presumptuous. But their love and the quiet of their lives was too strong a pull. It is surprising how dull the prose of the Court’s opinion is. Yet, like so much law, it uses the dry language of justice as a covering for beauty. And its effect was enormous: it allowed Mr. and Mrs. Loving to live their lives in peace. This poem will never be finished. I keep changing it and changing it in just little ways.)
Lawrence N. DiCostanzo
I climb above the fog, yet do not know
The reason for this effort. Can it be
The pleasure when I draw up and see
How sunlight blankets rolling grassland with no
Dark tree to stitch it to the blue. I slow
And see the seam of the horizon smooth
Against a bowl of blue, the only truth
And world my distant forebears long ago
Could love. They hoped beyond that line
There await the lovely muscled herds, the streams
Of fish, the comfort of a hunt: in short, the Place
Where limbs feel happy aches. God, rushing by when time
Runs down, should see I have romantic dreams
And fondly scoop me up from this high place —
The cycling dawdler with the dreamy face.
Bury me in a meadow, some untilled waste,
Next to fields of lettuce or off the highway’s verge.
Let it be my stone, engraved in repeated rotation
Through timeless years. Where rabbits start in the grass,
Mice rustle, and slender king snake makes his way,
In the warm breezeless understory of bush and weed;
Where song sparrow hangs on sideways to dry stalk,
And kestrel teeters, flaps, teeters, on rigid feathers
Spread out in points. Here it is dry and quiet.
And, when the Resurrection comes, let the trumpet be
The brassy, tuneless vibration of the bee, against the clacking
Of locust wings. Let my waking eyes gaze up
On sweet fennel or Queen Anne’s lace in sun.
And, if God should come to look for me, Let Him be
The cyclist, pausing to rest. Hands light
On handlebars and saddle, He gazes on this modesty.
And let Him say: This is too good to waste.
Even though you wear petite,
I should have known.
The way you hold your head,
the focused movement,
thrift in speech —
All were clues.
When you muscled the case of wine
into the trunk while
I was calling, “Wait! Wait!”
When you dug up the whole garden
with a rusty shovel.
When you dragged the garbage bins
up the driveway two by two —
I realized that twins would be no problem.
You’d suckle one at each breast
while chewing leather to downy softness
for me to wear on winter hunts.
You’d make our autumn fire,
spinning one stick on another.
You’d keep it going throughout the winter
to cozy up our share of cave.
You’d heat up water with hot rocks
and use the waiting time
to ply your awl for boots.
You’d swat the kids and laugh.
You’d be ever looking out
for fat and protein. And so in spring
you’d heft a load, and off we’d walk
to where the fish were running.
I’d use up secret hours
to make a necklace from
a thousand shells I’d found
and managed to hide from you.
Time’s tide lifts up the winter clouds
To heaven’s higher reaches.
The sky spreads out, a giant sea,
With long and distant beaches.
Looking up, now we can see
How softer colors chalked
In greys and blacks with subtlety
Make seas to sail, beaches to walk.
Against the lovely, giant morn,
A small, fine galaxy
Of orange globes glows in the dawn,
Hung on a bare-twigged tree.
Grey sky and orange complement
And with the orange-gold
That San Francisco’s windows send,
Play us a song of old.
The lyrics say the world is fine,
More so in winter’s dawn
When this still beauty doth remind
We sunbathe on God’s lawn.
In Memory of Gracie
I thought that you would love this, Mom,
because you once said, as I drove you
over Pinehurst Road and you looked
at the chaparral, “How can God
keep all of this in mind?” And you meant
that it was wonderful and beautiful
every crack in the bark every aspiring
leaf of manzanita turned sideways to the sun.
And because I think that just being outdoors
would thrill you after all that old age
and confinement and solitude
and arthritis and the one-hundred years
of living of which the last ten were
a challenge to us all. And because together
together we would just love the freedom
and the speed and the risk and the downhills
together. And because I want you to know
what I do when I go cycling to know how
much I love it and how the cool wind
feels on face and legs and how a bike
can tip and lean and swoop like a hawk
and you would feel what I could never
exactly tell you about the joy of it
in those effortless moments
just before the downhill
and the turning on the curves I could
go on and on. But I don’t have to
because you’re here and laughing
and crowding in your shrieks and giggles
and the “Watch it!” and “Oh, my God!”
and your face looks forward and intent
on the pleasure of it all the doing it
with me. Your flannel nightgown is
snapping in the wind like a bright flag
in a windy March mid-morning,
like silk robes, like the controlled
feathers of an eagle’s wings,
as if, as if you were an angel like me
and we are in our own particular heaven.
For V.G.B.
He’s riding out while it’s still dark.
The creak of leather makes
A dry-sweet song, the only mark
On far black mountains’ shape.
In moonset, sage begins to glow,
The horizon faintly lightens.
Star lanterns from the dark hang low;
And make all white things brighten.
So white and blue, so calm and cold,
Man and his horse breathe clouds.
The quiet’s pooled in every fold
Of cloth, of earth, of sound.
Anon he spies a golden speck
That brightens coming nigh
Until he has to bend his neck
And look through creased brown eyes.
Up close there are three Mexicans
Broad hats with bright gold braid,
They smack each string of their guitars,
Full throat their loud refrain.
They sing of every love he’s known:
His mother, dad, dear friends;
And every future love he’s shown,
A girl, a wife, children.
With song they lead him to a shed:
The baby laid inside
Crows, smiles, grabs his hatless head
With laughing baby eyes.
Soft hands, fat feet, the too big face,
The belly like a ball,
All strike inside a deep down place:
Thick tears begin to fall.
When dawn comes clear and night is gone,
He says his thanks and parts.
And rides into the light alone
The song fast in his heart.
Fearless: Got time for ‘recovery drink’ ? I’m waiting by YMCA entry rd.
Ride Leader: Sorry, just got your message. Couldn’t make it today – maybe next time
Fearless: No recovery drink for 3rd Sat Rides ! No bad food, alcohol and social opportunities ? Shocked !
Shocked I am !
(Now smooth Motown sounds)
Please Ride Leader, Plan for me
Bad food, alcohol, Social opportunity
Please look and see, Been waiting so patiently
Bad food, alcohol, Social opportunity
Please, Please, Please
Ride Leader
Don’t tell me how many miles you ran,
Tell me of the flowers underfoot at the first mile
How the birds sang when the end was in sight,
The way the clouds parted for the light.
The night.
Tell me the story of the grass, how it flattened
As the wind blew you by,
How it sprang up again.
The rain.
Tell of the flight.
Don’t tell me how many miles you ran, how fast,
Tell me of the last mile,
and whether you reached at the last.