EXCERPTS

Consider What Passes for Kindness These Days
The farmers in 1942 Waterloo, Nebraska,
Would meet at the train tracks,
Their hands shoved deep and final
In their overalls fingering lint, always lint.
My father would stand with his father
Whose withered arm hung limp at his side,
His right hand in his pocket like the other
Complete, incomplete men, and wait
With them for the train to slow through town
In a coughing arc where the men were poised,
Their hands exhumed for the gathering
Of coal that the hoboes would throw,
Scooping it out, handfuls of black hail, yawping
With beneficence, pleased with their work.
The farmers would scurry about the tracks still
Ringing from the weight; they understood
Each other’s faces, the small acts that were beyond
Shame when one had warmth. My father would
Gather as his father would give a good-armed wave
To the hoboes, shouting above the train whistle.
Call it another day of heat, with coal in pockets,
Everything chalky black. Hands at their sides,
Collars up, not quite slouching the warm walk home.

Navigating the Dark
Papua, Indonesia
In this mining town in Papua the electricity
Has a habit of giving up at night, and this
Is a miracle of modern stasis, a secular Shabbat,
Reminding us of what is expendable, of how so few
Of us ever truly experience the dark. We are amazed,
My wife and I, with the heavy darkness
Of the no moon jungle, insect sounds lacerating
All illusions of silent places. “It’s so absolute,”
My wife says, and I like to think she means
More than the darkness; the naked places
Of ourselves we dress in sunlight, lamps,
And recorded music like antithetical
Blanche DeBois’s fearing a different sort
Of scrutiny. “We could pretend it’s 1940,”
I say, “put a Jack Benny tape on the short wave
And drink coffee, light candles.” She suggests
A walk outside instead, where there are dozens
Of others already out on paths bounded by jungle,
Stepping small and laughing loudly through various
Uncertainties; flashlights as eyes, ears like animals’.
Soon we are trying only to remember not to disappear
Altogether; everything is so absolutely, so darkly possible.

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