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Start by following Ronald Wallace.
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“Last color bleeds from the trees,
the slow drip of rain, collapsing.
The feverish maples decline.
We pause to pick mushrooms,
stick into our sacks these
squat, warty, beige and tan hammers,
these spongy plungers and rams,
these alien, faceless denizens of damp.
They are not in our book.
As we walk through this flaccid rain,
this vague sense of loss and wrong,
we don’t talk. But we wonder
about maples and mushrooms, about us:
Anything you can’t name is dangerous.”
―
the slow drip of rain, collapsing.
The feverish maples decline.
We pause to pick mushrooms,
stick into our sacks these
squat, warty, beige and tan hammers,
these spongy plungers and rams,
these alien, faceless denizens of damp.
They are not in our book.
As we walk through this flaccid rain,
this vague sense of loss and wrong,
we don’t talk. But we wonder
about maples and mushrooms, about us:
Anything you can’t name is dangerous.”
―
“Each night I read you stories—
Sinbad, Aladdin, Periebanou, Periezade—
in that strange exotic language
you cannot possibly understand:
countenance, repast, bequeathed, nuptial,
what can these words be telling you?
What can they signify?
That I love you? It’s time to sleep?
Keep safe throughout this night?
And yet you will not let me simplify,
get angry if I explain,
and hang on every word as if
our lives depended on it.
Perhaps they do.
One day the stories will fail us,
there will be nothing left to tell,
another hand will rub your back,
another genie will rise.
But for now, sleep tight, sleep tight,
and dream of the singing tree,
the speaking bird, the golden water,
the stone that was your father,
restored by morning light.”
―
Sinbad, Aladdin, Periebanou, Periezade—
in that strange exotic language
you cannot possibly understand:
countenance, repast, bequeathed, nuptial,
what can these words be telling you?
What can they signify?
That I love you? It’s time to sleep?
Keep safe throughout this night?
And yet you will not let me simplify,
get angry if I explain,
and hang on every word as if
our lives depended on it.
Perhaps they do.
One day the stories will fail us,
there will be nothing left to tell,
another hand will rub your back,
another genie will rise.
But for now, sleep tight, sleep tight,
and dream of the singing tree,
the speaking bird, the golden water,
the stone that was your father,
restored by morning light.”
―
