Flying At Night Read online

  In a Country Cemetery in Iowa

  —for James Hearst

  Someone's been up here nights,

  and in a hurry,

  breaking the headstones.

  And someone else,

  with a little time to spare,

  has mended them;

  some farmer, I'd say,

  who knows his welding.

  He's stacked them up in

  harnesses of iron,

  old angle iron and strap,

  taking a little extra time

  to file the welds down smooth.

  Just passing through, you'd say

  it looks like foolishness.

  The Man with the Hearing Aid

  A man takes out his hearing aid

  and falls asleep, his good ear deep

  in the pillow. Thousands of bats

  fly out of the other ear.

  All night they flutter and dive

  through laughter, catching the punch lines,

  their ears all blood and velvet.

  At dawn they return. The weary squeaks

  make the old stone cavern ring

  with gibberish. As the man awakens,

  the last of the bats folds into sleep.

  His ear is thick with fur and silence.

  The Very Old

  The very old are forever

  hurting themselves,

  burning their fingers

  on skillets, falling

  loosely as trees

  and breaking their hips

  with muffled explosions of bone.

  Down the block

  they are wheeled in

  out of our sight

  for years at a time.

  To make conversation,

  the neighbors ask

  if they are still alive.

  Then, early one morning,

  through our kitchen windows

  we see them again,

  first one and then another,

  out in their gardens

  on crutches and canes,

  perennial,

  checking their gauges for rain.

  Walking Beside a Creek

  Walking beside a creek

  in December, the black ice

  windy with leaves,

  you can feel the great joy

  of the trees, their coats

  thrown open like drunken men,

  the lifeblood thudding

  in their tight, wet boots.

  Book Club

  Mother has come to the clean end

  of a morning full of the clink of mints

  in little dishes, of lemon oil

  tart in the living-room air,

  of the water ballet of the folding chairs

  rehearsing their kicks in a circle

  of patience. The ladies are due

  at two o'clock, a fat tour guide

  of Hawaii on schedule, lagoons

  of romance to lap the hot shore

  in each girdle, volcanoes of ashes

  filling the ashtrays, the bright birds

  of sweet smiles crisscrossing

  the circle.

  Meanwhile, my father

  is picking up leaves from the drive;

  as he bends, his blood tries the loose doors

  of his arteries. At sixty-six,

  with his retirement Bulova

  wound tight as his heart, he has entered

  the blue, high-altitude hallway of age.

  There air is thin. If he looks forward

  or back he gets dizzy. Today, in the bleak

  exile of book club, even his bathroom's

  forbidden to him. His razor and soap

  have been hidden, his pills put away.

  If he needs to go to the bathroom,

  he'll have to walk down to the station

  and ask for the key. Most likely though,

  he's safe.

  At the foot of the stairs

  to the basement, he's drawn up an armchair

  and floor lamp. Through the long afternoon,

  he'll sit there pretending to read,

  while above him the pink mints go around

  in slow circles, and lovely Hawaii

  comes to Des Moines in the hula

  of numb fannies on laboring chairs.

  At the End of the Weekend

  It is Sunday afternoon,

  and I suddenly miss

  my distant son, who at ten

  has just this instant buzzed

  my house in a flying

  cardboard box, dipping

  one wing to look down over

  my shimmering roof, the yard,

  the car in the drive. In his room

  three hundred miles from me,

  he tightens his helmet,

  grips the controls, turns

  loops and rolls. My windows

  rattle. On days like this,

  the least quick shadow crossing

  the page makes me look up

  at the sky like a goose,

  squinting to see that flash

  that I dream is his thought of me

  daring to fall through the distance,

  then climbing, full throttle, away.

  Uncle Adler

  He had come to the age

  when his health had put cardboard

  in all of its windows.

  The oil in his eyes was so old

  it would barely light,

  and his chest was a chimney

  full of bees. Of it all,

  he had nothing to say;

  his Adam's apple hung like a ham

  in a stairwell. Lawyers

  encircled the farm like a fence,

  and his daughters fought over

  the china. Then one day

  while everyone he'd ever loved

  was digging in his yard,

  he suddenly sucked in his breath so hard

  the whole estate fell in on him.

  In the Corners of Fields

  Something is calling to me

  from the corners of fields,

  where the leftover fence wire

  suns its loose coils, and stones

  thrown out of the furrow

  sleep in warm litters;

  where the gray faces

  of old No Hunting signs

  mutter into the wind,

  and dry horse tanks

  spout fountains of sunflowers;

  where a moth

  flutters in from the pasture,

  harried by sparrows,

  and alights on a post,

  so sure of its life

  that it peacefully opens its wings.

  How to Make Rhubarb Wine

  Go to the patch some afternoon

  in early summer, fuzzy with beer

  and sunlight, and pick a sack

  of rhubarb (red or green will do)

  and God knows watch for rattlesnakes

  or better, listen; they make a sound

  like an old lawn mower rolled downhill.

  Wear a hat. A straw hat's best

  for the heat but lets the gnats in.

  Bunch up the stalks and chop the leaves off

  with a buck knife and be careful.

  You need ten pounds; a grocery bag

  packed full will do it. Then go home

  and sit barefooted in the shade

  behind the house with a can of beer.

  Spread out the rhubarb in the grass

  and wash it with cold water

  from the garden hose, washing

  your feet as well. Then take a nap.

  That evening, dice the rhubarb up

  and put it in a crock. Then pour

  eight quarts of boiling water in,

  cover it up with a checkered cloth

  to keep the fruit flies out of it,

  and let it stand five days or so.

  Take time each day to think of it.

  Ferment ten days, under the cloth,

&n
bsp; sniffing of it from time to time,

  then siphon it off, swallowing some,

  and bottle it. Sit back and watch

  the liquid clear to honey yellow,

  bottled and ready for the years,

  and smile. You've done it awfully well.

  Late Lights in Minnesota

  At the end of a freight train rolling away,

  a hand swinging a lantern.

  The only lights left behind in the town

  are a bulb burning cold in the jail,

  and high in one house,

  a five-battery flashlight

  pulling an old woman downstairs to the toilet

  among the red eyes of her cats.

  The Afterlife

  It will be February there,

  a foreign-language newspaper

  rolling along the dock

  in an icy wind, a few

  old winos wiping their eyes

  over a barrel of fire;

  down the streets, mad women

  shaking rats from their mops

  on each stoop, and odd,

  twisted children,

  playing with matches and knives.

  Then, behind us, trombones:

  the horns of the tugs

  turning our great gray ship

  back into the mist.

  A Widow

  She's combed his neckties out of her hair

  and torn out the tongues of his shoes.

  She's poured his ashes out of their urn

  and into his humidor. For the very last time,

  she's scrubbed the floor around the toilet.

  She hates him even more for dying.

  So This Is Nebraska

  The gravel road rides with a slow gallop

  over the fields, the telephone lines

  streaming behind, its billow of dust

  full of the sparks of redwing blackbirds.

  On either side, those dear old ladies,

  the loosening barns, their little windows

  dulled by cataracts of hay and cobwebs

  hide broken tractors under their skirts.

  So this is Nebraska. A Sunday

  afternoon; July. Driving along

  with your hand out squeezing the air,

  a meadowlark waiting on every post.

  Behind a shelterbelt of cedars,

  top-deep in hollyhocks, pollen and bees,

  a pickup kicks its fenders off

  and settles back to read the clouds.

  You feel like that; you feel like letting

  your tires go flat, like letting the mice

  build a nest in your muffler, like being

  no more than a truck in the weeds,

  clucking with chickens or sticky with honey

  or holding a skinny old man in your lap

  while he watches the road, waiting

  for someone to wave to. You feel like

  waving. You feel like stopping the car

  and dancing around on the road. You wave

  instead and leave your hand out gliding

  larklike over the wheat, over the houses.

  Fort Robinson

  When I visited Fort Robinson,

  where Dull Knife and his Northern Cheyenne

  were held captive that terrible winter,

  the grounds crew was killing the magpies.

  Two men were going from tree to tree

  with sticks and ladders, poking the young birds

  down from their nests and beating them to death

  as they hopped about in the grass.

  Under each tree where the men had worked

  were twisted clots of matted feathers,

  and above each tree a magpie circled,

  crazily calling in all her voices.

  We didn't get out of the car.

  My little boy hid in the back and cried

  as we drove away, into those ragged buttes

  the Cheyenne climbed that winter, fleeing.

  How to Foretell a Change in the Weather

  Rain always follows the cattle

  sniffing the air and huddling

  in fields with their heads to the lee.

  You will know that the weather is changing

  when your sheep leave the pasture

  too slowly, and your dogs lie about

  and look tired; when the cat

  turns her back to the fire,

  washing her face, and the pigs

  wallow in litter; cocks will be crowing

  at unusual hours, flapping their wings;

  hens will chant; when your ducks

  and your geese are too noisy,

  and the pigeons are washing themselves;

  when the peacocks squall loudly

  from the tops of the trees,

  when the guinea fowl grates;

  when sparrows chip loudly

  and fuss in the roadway, and when swallows

  fly low, skimming the earth;

  when the carrion crow

  croaks to himself, and wild fowl

  dip and wash, and when moles

  throw up hills with great fervor;

  when toads creep out in numbers;

  when frogs croak; when bats

  enter the houses; when birds

  begin to seek shelter,

  and the robin approaches your house;

  when the swan flies at the wind,

  and your bees leave the hive;

  when ants carry their eggs to and fro,

  and flies bite, and the earthworm

  is seen on the surface of things.

  Snow Fence

  The red fence

  takes the cold trail

  north; no meat

  on its ribs,

  but neither has it

  much to carry.

  In an Old Apple Orchard

  The wind's an old man

  to this orchard; these trees

  have been feeling

  the soft tug of his gloves

  for a hundred years.

  Now it's April again,

  and again that old fool

  thinks he's young.

  He's combed the dead leaves

  out of his beard; he's put on

  perfume. He's gone off

  late in the day

  toward the town, and come back

  slow in the morning,

  reeling with bees.

  As late as noon, if you look

  in the long grass,

  you can see him

  still rolling about in his sleep.

  An Empty Place

  There is nothing for Death

  in an empty house,

  nor left for him in the white dish

  broken over the road.

  Come and sit down by me

  on the sunny stoop,

  and let your heart so gently

  rock you, rock you.

  There is nothing to harm us here.

  After the Funeral: Cleaning Out the Medicine Cabinet

  Behind this mirror no new world

  opens to Alice. Instead, we find

  the old world, rearranged in rows,

  a dusty little chronicle

  of small complaints and private sorrows,

  each cough caught dry and airless

  in amber, the sore feet powdered

  and cool in their yellow can.

  To this world turned the burning eyes

  after their search, the weary back

  after its lifting, the heavy heart

  like an old dog, sniffing the lid

  for an answer. Now one of us

  unscrews the caps and tries the air

  of each disease. Another puts

  the booty in a shoe box: tins

  of laxatives and aspirin,

  the corn pads and the razor blades,

  while still another takes the vials

  of secret sorrows—the little pills

  with faded, lonely codes—holding
>
  them out the way one holds a spider

  pinched in a tissue, and pours them down

  the churning toilet and away.

  The Grandfather Cap

  Sometimes I think that as he aged,

  this cap, with the stain in its brim

  like a range of dark mountains,

  became the horizon to him.

  He never felt right with it off.

  Shooting a Farmhouse

  The first few wounds are nearly invisible;

  a truck rumbles past in the dust

  and a .22 hole appears in the mailbox

  like a fly landing there.

  In a month you can see sky

  through the tail of the windmill.

  The attic windows grow black and uneasy.

  When the last hen is found shot in the yard,

  the old man and his wife move away.

  In November, a Land Rover

  flattens the gate like a tank

  and pulls up in the yard. Hunters spill out

  and throw down their pheasants like hats.

  They blow out the rest of the windows,

  set beer cans up on the porch rails

  and shoot from the hip.

  One of them walks up and yells in,

  “Is anyone home?” getting a laugh.

  By sunset, they've kicked down the door.

  In the soft blush of light,

  they blast holes in the plaster

  and piss on the floors.

  When the beer and the shells are all gone,

  they drive sadly away,

  the blare of their radio fading.

  A breeze sighs in the shelterbelt.

  Back in the house,

  the newspapers left over from packing

  the old woman's dishes

  begin to blow back and forth through the rooms.

  Beer Bottle

  In the burned-

  out highway

  ditch the throw-

  away beer

  bottle lands

  standing up

  unbroken,

  like a cat

  thrown off

  of a roof

  to kill it,

  landing hard

  and dazzled

  in the sun,

  right side up;

  sort of a

  miracle.

  Sleeping Cat

  My cat is asleep on his haunches

  like a sphinx. He has gone down cautiously