Dreams are not as beautiful

arthur dobrin© 2010

ContentsMy DesireVolunteersNext DoorVoices Upon the WallHoudini’s GraveLong Island HistoryMy Brother’s Accordion in a Crocodile CaseKismetThrough You Like StarsAunts and UnclesMontana ConventWater TreesBrooklyn BotanicQuestions for MenkeCenter of the HeartAffirmationWhat I KnowDreams Are Not as BeautifulNewbornInheritanceIn the Mouth of RainbowsAngel of SuburbiaSo Many Possibilities

My DesireOn a cold spring day,When the wet tames the wildAnd cherry blossoms are here but not you,Your absence defines all that is.My desire the daffodils and yoursDaisies you dream forthFrom sodden ground you plough,Until I leave and flowers go onGrowing in fields you have sown.

VolunteersNearly nothing grows Planned in the garden,No straight lines or rows,Only occult rationality reasonedFrom soil, sun, and shadow.Scallions, lemon balm, and basilVolunteer themselves as you doYear after year in early autumnBy the wild ivy more beautifulFor the hidden colors of autumn.

Next Door

Our neighbor plants the earthAs if this were Iowa.Her husband of nearly fifty yearsGrumbles about his receding lawnGobbled by tomatoes and autumn flowers.They eat food that tastes of soil,Look at each other with dimming eyes,And their hands warm for they are fireAnd they are music and their house overflowsLike an apple tree in autumn.

Voices Upon the WallWaking early to walk downstairsI hear the cellist on the wallAnd voices singing to her bow.When I neared adolescence on the city street,This house was born on a blacksmith’s shedAnd potatoes grew on the nearby plains.

Waking early to walk downstairsWhen my family is still asleep,I listen to the chorus of thoseI’ve never met, the neighbors from before.I touch the walls they once touched,Walk the floor they walked before.As for me, what will I leave? Who will hearMy voice upon the wall?

I’ve often thought of homesteads,A house of many generations,Gravestones near a maple tree.It’s not possible to be buried in my garden.Someone will have to pack my bonesTo take with them as they go.We are the ones who won’t stay still,The generation without memory or guilt.

I wonder which is the greater burden:To live in a land of ancestorsIn time counted by treesOr in a house where waking Early to walk downstairsThe voices are all unknown.

WestburyNo trace of Indian livesCan be found among the houses,Not an arrow has been uncoveredEven while digging for suburbia.Of course there are no headstonesBut neither are there tools nor bonesWorthy of consideration.Many crossed the broad water,Fished the salty seas,Trapped small game in the woods north of here.What did they know aboutThe greatest plains east of the Mississippi?If they crossed this country,They took their traces with them,Holding their lives in their quivers,Packing their shadows as they went.On this earth we grow berries and asparagus;Now beans and grapes grow full.Massapequa, look for me in my dreams.Tell me the secret of this forbidden place.

Houdini’s GraveKnowing Houdini sleptA bicycle ride awayOn a cemetery ridgeBeside a winding road—

A divide between this life and that—I searched in a maze of marbleMausoleums and tombstonesTouched by the hand of God.

Looking for a sign,The earth I saw remained Undisturbed by resurrection,A promise yet fulfilled.

Certain now the dead stay stillAnd even magicians have limitsI pedaled home to sleepAnd dreamed of falling chains.

Long Island HistoryBargain and barterKnowing the price paid is swindle—Ghost ship and dwarf pineSeastrand and mall,House and highway.Stuff the head with spice, Scrape the scales,Slit the stomach and prepare:Potato and pumpkinApple and peach,Oyster and duck. This splendid islandLong gone.

My Brother’s Accordion in a Crocodile CaseOpen it.And a world Bellows out—

On a cobblestone street in Queens,Iorio’s workshop thick with glue,Reeds, white keys, black buttons, A floor covered in wood shavings.

Lessons in an Old World apartmentBeside a riverside drive,A room as strange as Viennese cafes,Tango studios in Argentina.

A monkey is in the case,An attraction in a sour bar,Songs sung under sparking And rattling rails.

KismetEarly in the morningThe house by the seaWe walk to the swale where beachGrass and bayberry layOn a hidden slope and lookAt ourselves from the outside in.

No emptiness but the sky fastenedThere at Manhattan and Montauk in mist,Herring gulls above and we walk alone,Place ourselves like chalk,Later find a nearer placeWhere a bather is closer by.

We gather our inhibitionsAnd spread them across the sand.Everything breathes green and stillAs our winter dreams are put by.We look at ourselves from the inside out,Walk to the water warm and free.

When we look back withClear and innocent eyes:Joy in our passion drunk upon water,Little smiles and midday sleep.In those moments a garland of small pleasures.Without measure that was the place to be.

Through You Like Stars

When I begin to speakLike this silence crushes my throat—

Fallen from nowhere through your wombFrom the beginning it is a matter of discipline—

Before I was we were attachedAnd since have grown alone—

Your heart is more full of meThan mine is of you—

It flows away like water downwardNever upward like sap feeding trees —

I come back to where I startedThrough you like star and fish—

My mother who artIn heaven is your name.

Aunts and Uncles

Strange that one and her sonIn a shoebox room, Twin beds pressed together.

One uncle’s face sand smooth,His feline marriage countedOn a calendar’s page.

Another greets me from deserts, Talks of men on the moonUntil his brain is burned clean.

Fay, aptly named, the youngest,Possessed by a foreign tribeIn woods where timeless children played.

Silence falls like stones in a pond.Around our dinner plates they ripple As against a distant shore.

Montana Convent

A storm of frozen starsSwirls across the plainsMy beard cakes with ice

Women workMercy in a broken worldSilent hearts of red

A cross above the bedI’m under Christ's feetAsleep

My ancestors tremble At my dumb courageA lonely night

I dream of straps and boxesFringed shawls and candlesSnow soaked in blood

Tonight there are no bootsNo accusations of deicideNo attempt at conversion

Only coffee and conversation At the breakfast tableSister, brother in a winter room

Water TreesWho will rememberTo water treesOr plant applesAnd plums in autumn?Forests care for themselvesBut gardens and orchards—Who will care for themAs we slide through earthLighter than blue dovesAnd flying more splendidThan jungle birds of paradise?

Brooklyn Botanic

We stopTalkingAnd Are lostFor words.There, old friend—A motionless heron, A torii in a pond, And cherry blossomsFallingFallingAndFloatingOn water.

Questions for MenkeSinger of the Milky Way,Poet of potatoes,Child of trampled streetsPig sweet in Michaleshik—

We weave our souls, Sip sweet wineAt my meatless table.Tell me: Did Grandpa know

Horses’ hooves thickWith pillagers’ mudIn his burning village Called Novaradok?

Where did they go, Those who didn’t runFrom swords and bootsBut lived for another day?

Tell them they are not alone.My hand, your brother’s,Your mother’s mouth we touch.And the smell of you on the pillow.

Center of the Heart

Some things are so beautifulTo hold them is to bringThe sun to the center of the heartThese things on the tongueOf the pages I holdThese things in the eyeOf the spinning earth.These things once saidAre again and againPersimmon, rose, and cinnabar.Some things are so beautifulTo hold them is to die.

AffirmationOut of the infinite darkI’ve stumbled a billionBillion years in waiting,Honey and oak, cotton and wind,

Scarlet dust and dung am I.My eyes are winter wheat,My hands woven linen.The sky combs my chestnut hair.

I lean against all others,Raddle my blood on a rainbow loom,Scatter seeds like stars, for children,Mice, horses that fly in my dreams.

Life, never could I imagine such as you,Summer slowing to autumn and summer again,Leaves burning brighter than crystalMulching fields of sleeping berries.

Life—“Sister,” a Russian called you—Overflowing I build in the nest Of my heart for nightwalkers In the dark.

What I Know

Such skills I have:Clipping heavy rams’ hooves,Pruning thin limbs of coffee trees.I can ride subways in several cities,Speak a language and a half,Tease scholarly words out of hiding.My tongue can find its way in your darknessSweetened with baby’s breath and cocoa,Softened by decades in tandem,Chastened by our children sleepingTheir separate lives.

Dreams Are Not As BeautifulHow many times?Who can remember?

Callow first from collegeUntil your belly swelled.

Nine years later a stoneHouse on a green hill.

The silence of safaris,Lavender sky and savannah.

Yours the elephants,Mine the giraffe.

The buzz of mosquitoes,The flight of butterflies.

Our names: Moraa, Osoro,Nyakundi, Kwamboka.

Theirs: Ongesa, Maranga,Pereira, Singh.

The places: Africa, Kenya, Kisii, Tabaka.

Dreams are not As beautiful.

To return and return:This our hearts.

Newborn

In my handsMy newborn sonHis hair still stiff withThe rubyjuice of birth.I hold the break of dayAnd in my handsGenerations waiting.

InheritanceThis you inherit:The gold of Africa’s sunBathing a boma of straw,Gospel singing to close the sores—And your other partChosen to keep the WordIn two thousand years of wandering.This is yours,You who came to us The color of fawn,African girl,Daughter of Jerusalem.

In the Mouth of RainbowsA thousand hands

made youA thousand nights

of dustA thousand lips

made youA thousand caresses

in forgotten placesIn nights deeper

than indigoIn days longer

than seasAnd here you are

under one quiltReturning each star

to its proper placeReturning each lip

to the mouth of rainbows

Angel of SuburbiaO starsBeyond all counting,Galaxies beyond all seeing,Dust of the world’s four winds:The grass now greener than green,Apples more scented than hayflower,Our hearts flow overMore full than the Nile, Ganges, Neman, Hudson,Angel of suburbia,You dreaming yet of paradise,We holding it here,You.

So Many PossibilitiesBent over you whisperingWanting to know whyApproaching nine moonsYou rush your becomingFlesh out of waterWe ask you—Son, brother, cousin,Grandson—How so many possibilitiesCan be contained in so little.