The Wax Paper

Six by Robbins

 

Richard Robbins

JULY

In hated towns, even, churches ring

their morning bells—at eight or nine, maybe.

In summer, when a breeze floats the last of night-cool

north, bells ring on that same breeze,

reminding the most hateful banker,

walking to work, of the farm

he grew up on, three fields away from the Methodist

chapel, and even a budding thug,

en route to slashing Harold Nystrom’s

favorite hybrid rose, will notice a twinge

the first knelling makes

in his rib. His job is not to remember it.

Then musical air turns normal.

Any town continues to pay its bills and have its

accidents, while the nearly clean river

eats a slow way through the concrete floodwall.

Day will heat up. Something memorable

may or may not happen during the lunchtime

hustle: people have their seizures then,

or get engaged. Either way,

afternoon will begin to crawl

beneath its humidity, the black locust more

tropical-looking, passing trucks

more and more like the tireless engines

of wilt and misery. Just before six,

businesses all closed, most people home

or playing softball, leaves will start

a new trembling. The coals

will almost be gray enough for the meat.

Reading the paper outdoors, one person will feel

cool. For a moment, tricycle sound will stop.

Bells will have started ringing again,

a kind of slow-moving front

gone after their minute, raining on both

the beautiful and the damned,

drenching everyone with sure, unexpected music.

IMPOSSIBLE MODESTY

Wherein the man removes his shoes,

his clothes, lifetimes of desire

hung now on the chair back, bodiless,

the door to the next world opening

as if to dark space without pole

or gravity, as if to dark

inside a mouth that will not speak.

AFTER BEING QUIET FOR A LONG TIME

You’d let the tongue wait longer. The slick road

heart-to-lip grow dangerous with weeds.

You’d stand at the open door watching earth

close a snowy mouth over each word.

A bell choir changed you. Squirrels in the attic.

The crying girl. A pencil breaking.

Where does all the noise go, going inside?

Waves slap and flatten on a cold lake.

After being quiet for a long time, you’d slip

over yourself toward talk, not at all

like you thought. You’d fall through anger and lust

as bad as always, the road without toll,

no bridges locked from here to either coast.

Someday again you’d think yourself through a meal,

biting through to silence. Quiet through dishes,

through sex or shower. Quiet through asking

or asking forgiveness. The larch, a dock,

your small boat would wait for you like the lake

for the first oar-pull into the middle,

for a word to say without breaking.

A COMPASS FOR MY DAUGHTER

North is where the shadow

of the sky

retreats. North is a way back

to Grandfather, to night

animals we miss but are afraid

to befriend again.

You’ll see long

clouds moving down someday. Remember

then, it will be time.

             Everywhere,

always, welcome the gift

of rain. Rain comes from where the streams

have gone. It is never

not at home. When you’re sick, remember

the circle

of water, red message

at dusk. Look west: everything

returns.

    Southern luster

of feathers, the light in your skin.

The living turn there

and come to rest. Fire is its

color. Color is its real

name. Yellow

direction, warmest wind, the child

you once were.

South.

      Face east in your heart

and you’ll begin

all journeys new. I bring you this far

so I can leave you. So I can tell you our bodies are clocks

and compasses—we have it in us

to know the time to

turn and point away.

Face east

in your heart and my leaving

signals return. Leaving is

all around us. Dying, too. Lives

move from room to room,

and they turn,

and they change

courses, drown, and are revived

at sea, on land,

in whatever air they breathe.

Your mother and I love you. You are

the beach. We are the next lonely wave.

APHASIAC

Welcome for coming.

Please be advised along the rails of the guided ship.

The first of every month and you were the smartest one.

Out of the heavens spun above us just like that.

The liver throbbed a basket of lilies a garbage-filled cathedral.

Please sit yourself home.

We have only begun the cave wall blooming finally with animals.

 

 

Richard Robbins was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Southern California and Montana. He has lived continuously in Minnesota since 1984. He has published five full-length books as well as the recent Body Turn to Rain: New & Selected Poems, which Lynx House Press released in May 2017. Over the years, he's received awards and fellowships from The Loft, the McKnight Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, the Hawthornden Castle International Retreat for Writers, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Poetry Society of America. From 1986-2014, Robbins directed the Good Thunder Reading Series at Minnesota State University Mankato, where he continues to direct the creative writing program. In 2006, he was awarded the Kay Sexton Award for long-standing dedication and outstanding work in fostering books, reading and literary activity in Minnesota. 

"Guardian Angels", "Aphasiac", and "Impossible Modesty" from Body Turn to Rain: New and Selected Poems, Lynx House Press, 2017.

"A Compass for My Daughter" from The Invisible Wedding, The University of Missouri Press, 1984.

"After Being Quiet For A Long Time" from Famous Persons We Have Known, Eastern Washington University Press, 2000.

"July" from The Untested Hand, The Backwaters Press, 2008