How far to go?--I have to, I know,
I promised. But how? How, and when?
And where? It was cold. The sky,
blue, almost burst, leaves burnished
yellow. Nearing Liberty, Liberty
and Church streets. So it happened
in early November. Which is to say
a story took place. Once again
new lines, new colors. One scene
and then another. Characters talking
to one another. It was she who
opened the conversation. "A wild rose,
and grapes on vines along the ground,
a butterfly on the green palmetto,
plums the size of walnuts, gray
and vermilion"--she sat up straighter,
lips pressed together, looking me
square in the eyes--"and why, you tell me why,
in this time of so many claims to morality,
the weight of violence
is unparalleled in the history
of the species. . ." What needs to be said--
why not say it? "What dares to learn
what concerns him intimately,"
is how he says it in his book. Then the mind
runs through the spaces left behind, crossing
over to a different place. It certainly was
a well-dressed crowd. Here, again, the General,
the Attorney General, a beeper in one hand,
a crucifix in the other; here, again,
language, a language--a style, a groove, a fate.
On the esplanade, Battery Park, a newspaper,
old, caught in a gust, a child,
lost, crying--the pain was ours, I know it now;
beauty, the answer, if you must know--
the sun ablaze on the harbor. Hearing
a sentence phrased in. . .a tenor? countertenor?. . .
an error of nature, after all--made
of thought and of sound, of feelings seen--
in it, into it, inside it, down in.
From the new book of poems
Into It by Lawrence
Joseph, the Reverend Joseph T. Tinnelly, C.M., Professor of
Law, St. John’s University.