Excerpts

A Stand of Cottonwood I'm glad to be here, amid these cottonwood trees, Feeling the wind from the lake on my face, Sniffing the marsh smells and lake smells As I listen to the calls of unseen shorebirds. And I'm glad as well to acknowledge my civic coordinates: To be standing fifty yards from the Coast Guard station Barely half a mile from downtown Buffalo, At the western edge of the Empire State, Which might have taken more care of its shoreline Had it been ruled, now and then, by an emperor. Self-seeding cottonwood that began to root Some forty years back, I've read in a pamphlet, After the beach shacks were torn down and dredges Stopped dumping the sludge from the channel here. Trees that like their feet to stay wet while I Am thankful for the boardwalk path Lifted a yard above the cattails. Of the dozen birds named on the sign Beside their outlines, I can barely claim to know one By sight or sound. But that doesn't mean I'm too old to learn. Already I can distinguish Their calls from the traffic noise blowing in, Now and then, from the Skyway, and the ship horns, And the lunchtime bells from the Cathedral. Maybe when I learn to listen, I'll hear The tree toads scratching, or the tree roots Gripping the stone-rich soil and drinking, Or the termites tunneling in the logs- All oblivious to how close they are To what used to be numbered among the top three Grain ports of the Western world. So what if the grain is stored elsewhere now. It's time to focus on the life at hand, Which explains why I've donned my safari hat And brought my binoculars: Because it's now or never if I want to become Familiar with the residents of my neighborhood, Including these pioneer cottonwood Rising above the boardwalk And the birds unseen at rest in the canopy. And why not include the three fellow pedestrians Now approaching at a leisurely pace, Who nod when I nod, as if they knew me Or knew my kind. "Look, here's another Late-blooming, cottonwood-loving creature With a northerly range." Or, "Here's another Self-appointed surveyor of urban wetlands Who hopes to learn on the job All he needs to know." Fast Food I'd like to believe that the middle-aged woman Eating her dinner alone at the picnic table Provided by Ernie's Red Hots, just off Route 5, Between Woodlawn and Silver Creek, Hasn't made a wrong turn in life that's deprived her Of friends and family. I'd like to believe that the words She was writing a moment ago weren't part of a letter Accusing someone of betrayal or indifference But were notes to herself, perhaps for an article She's been asked to write by the magazine she works for On fast-food providers on the eastern shore of Lake Erie. Which of them take pride in their work-that's the question She may have committed herself to investigate. Here's a woman who's always found work in an office Too confining, who loves exploring the hinterlands. Thirty years ago she might have joined her brother In the study of law if lawyers still rode circuits As they did in the era of her father's granddad. How sad to her the thought of being stuck forever Inside one courthouse, though she'd like to believe That some of the clerks at work in her brother's office May find, as they browse a magazine on their break, The very article she's now doing the research for And be gladdened to learn they needn't be rich To afford a meal that will leave them feeling They've received, for once, far more than they expected. The rolls at Ernie's, they'll learn, whether white Or whole grain, are fresh, and the mustard Offers an artful blend of piquant spices. Before she gathers her notes and goes, She may copy Ernie's address from her place mat So she can send her review when it's published. His own conviction of being true to his standards, She realizes, may be all that matters. Still, It's also true that a stranger's endorsement May prove of use when he asks himself If he's doing the work he was meant to do, Or some of the work, at least, if not all. Bad Days, Good Days On good days as well as bad the odds Against my birth seem overwhelming. But on my bad days they imply that my claim To existence is tenuous, barely more real Than the claim of the billions of others Who missed the cut, while on my good days My presence seems like a miracle. It hurts my pride on my bad days to recall The story my mother told about her parents: How they wouldn't have met if the train That carried her father to the ship waiting at Hamburg Hadn't broken down in a field near Brest-Litovsk So he had to leave for America seven days later On the ship that carried my grandma-to-be. It hurts my pride to feel my destiny Bound up with a broken axle or gasket, But on my good days the wonder I feel Is a smaller version of the wonder Felt by cosmologists when they consider How close the cosmos itself came to missing The boat into being, to losing its chance For passengers, ports, and oceans, For stars as plentiful as grains of beach sand. The difference between my wonder and theirs Is that mine is infused, on my good days, With gratitude. Of course, they're pleased That everything managed to clamber aboard In the nick of time, but the alternative, Nothing at all, is too wispy for them to grasp, Whereas for me the story of Grandpa's train Grinding to a halt on a snowy plateau Is a gift I never grow tired of opening. What a privilege it is for me to join him While he paces beside the track as night comes on. What a privilege to share his brooding On the difference between his life If he makes his ship and his life if he doesn't. On my bad days choice seems denied him. He's no more free than the train is free to stop Or start when it pleases, or to leave the track. On my good days he's free to interpret the accident As one last chance to cancel his plan to emigrate And return to his friends and family, who want him to stay. And now I conceive him as free to set the question Aside awhile to note that the scene before him Would merit a painter's close attention. There he is, letting the lantern light absorb him As it falls on the workmen kneeling in the shadows Beside the engine while the snowy fields Stretch away behind them into the framing dark. And now above them a display of stars Appears to be just in time, after a journey Of many eons, to complete a picture He isn't likely to see again. Know Yourself Know yourself, says the oracle at Delphi, Confirming my doubts about oracles, Their assumption the self is a book Waiting for someone like me to read it, Not a coat I stitch together each day From dreams and wishes, habits and moods. If you know, says the oracle, that the portion Of courage you've been allotted is small, Better avoid a career in fighting fires. If you know that you're short on patience, Think twice about a career in teaching. But who's to say you couldn't acquire the courage To enter a burning house if you served a long Apprenticeship in dousing porch fires? Who's to say you couldn't learn patience By waiting a minute longer each day For a student to follow the steps of your argument? Not long ago I would fret when waiting in line On the day of a concert to buy a ticket, Thinking about the music I could be hearing At home on the stereo, though I knew the concert Might make me feel part of a ritual That ushered beauty into the world. But now I welcome the urge to join the audience. Yesterday I would have felt extra lucky To learn, when I reached the window, That my ticket was the last one available. But today I feel sorry that the woman behind me, Who's been willing to chat with me For close to an hour, will miss the music. Am I really disturbed by the thought She deserves to go far more than I do, Having bought her ticket weeks back Just to be sure she'd have one Only to lose it yesterday evening When she left her purse untended for just a moment? Who will I be today, I wonder: a person willing To right a wrong by offering her my ticket, Or a person content with hoping she's found Our talk so agreeable she's glad the last seat Has gone to someone who seems a kindred spirit, Not just to anyone? Joseph's Work He's done his work well for many decades, Overseeing the produce at the market His brothers own, where I've had a chance To benefit from his careful diligence In maintaining quality in the bins, The same virtue displayed on a larger scale By the Joseph his parents were thinking of In naming him, the favorite son of Jacob, Who ended up as the overseer Of all the Egyptian granaries. Like the brothers of Joseph in the Bible, His brothers, he's implied in a few asides Over the years, haven't behaved as brothers should, Though they never threw him into a pit, Angry their father loved him the most. It was more a case of everyday bullying That his father noticed but didn't stop. As for forgiving them all as Jacob's son Forgives his brothers-weeping with joy When they come from Canaan in a time of famine To buy grain-there the Joseph I know Admits that he's fallen short, Though he's tried to resist resentment By avoiding their company evenings and weekends. And now and then on Sunday, when the weather's good, I've passed him as he's sat on a bench In our local graveyard. Maybe it eases him To wonder how many of the dead around him Might have been happier if they'd managed To put away thoughts of blame, How many, if they couldn't manage to wish Their brothers well, managed at least Not to wish them ill. And the next day he's back at work, Making distinctions between plums Fit to be served at a banquet and plums Fit to be served at a potluck supper at home, Marked by more than the usual lumps and bruises But still to be savored, not too tart or sweet. Blind Guest I want to believe in him, the blind man Who makes the other guests at the dinner table Forget his blindness as he launches himself Into the talk around him. I want to believe He's moved by the lively exchange of opinions, Not by the fear he won't be asked to dinner Again if he sits all evening in silence And the silence is read as suggesting That luck alone has spared the others his hardship, That by rights his days should be sunny too. If I can believe he isn't looking for sympathy, That he doesn't expect me to share his burden, I'll feel so grateful that I may be willing To do what I can to share it. Though I can't Loan him my eyes once a week For an hour or two, I can try to dwell On the good it might do him to escape The pervading dark for even a moment, To visit the world only light reveals. And I can try to picture how reluctant he'd be To return the loan when the hour was out, How unfair it would seem to him that I Would be the lender always and he the borrower. Two Lives In my other life the B-17 my father is piloting Is shot down over Normandy And my mother raises her sons alone On her widow's pension and on what she earns As a nurse at the local hospital, a sum That pays for a third-floor walk-up In a neighborhood that's seen better days. I play stickball after school in the lot Behind the laundry. I come home bruised From fistfights and snowball fights With boys who live in the tenement on the corner. Not once do I play with the boy I am In this life, whose father, too old for the draft, Starts a paint company in a rented basement That almost goes under after a year And then is saved, as the war continues, By a steady flow of government contracts That allows my mother to retire from nursing And devote herself to work with the poor. I find our quiet neighborhood of handsome houses And shady streets crushingly uneventful. No surprise I spend hours each day turning the pages Of stories about trolls, wizards, giants, Wandering knights, and captive princesses. In my other life, I have to leave high school To bolster the family income as lab boy In the building attached to the factory that in this life My father owns. I clean test tubes and beakers, With a break for stacking cans on the loading dock Or driving the truck to make deliveries. In this life it takes only one summer of work At my father's office, addressing announcements Of a coating tougher than any made by competitors, To decide that the real world, so called, Is overrated, compared to the world of novels, Where every incident is freighted with implications For distinguishing apparent success from actual. No wonder I'm leaning toward a profession Where people can earn a living by talking In class about books they love. Meanwhile, In my other life, after helping to bring the union To a non-union shop, I rise in the ranks To become shop steward, and then, Helped by a union scholarship, I earn a degree in labor law. I bring home casebooks on weekends To the very block where I happen to live Ensconced in this life, here in a gray-green house With dark-brown trim. If I don't answer the bell On weekends in summer, I'm in the garden, Strolling the shady path beneath the maples, Musing on the difference between a life Deficient in incident and a life uncluttered. Seated at my patio table, I write a letter Asking a friend what book has he read In the last few months that has opened his eyes On a subject that's likely to interest me. Meanwhile, across the street, in the garden Of my other life, I can often be found Hoeing the rutabaga and beans and cabbage I plan to share with neighbors in the hope they're moved To consider planting a garden where many Excerpted from Night School by Carl Dennis All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.