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