Via Negativa

Every day, the neighborhood and its routines with only slight variations: the man who works for the newspaper brings his only daughter to the corner to wait for the school bus, then gets into his white Jeep and drives away. There are not many young children her age around here, but that might change in a few years. The music professor who lives in the last brownstone on the row walks a dog, a golden retriever, around the triangle and back. This dog is a loaner; it is not the same dog who was his longtime friend and companion but had been given or sold— I forget— to a different family on this street. This dog, the one he loved the best, returned to him when the daughter married and moved away; it wanted to die in its old home. He is stooped and walks more slowly now, but he still gives private lessons to college students. He inclines his head thoughtfully in a way that suggests he is always listening for music. Each New Year day, the couple in the middle of the row open their home and hold a potluck. Everyone was surprised to learn they had just gotten married last Saturday, after 29 years together. Week before Christmas, the woman who lives with her husband on a boat docked in the river was trying to put up Christmas lights. She was on a tall ladder, up near the mast; wild current coursed through wire and her tiny frame. She says, she could not unclench her lips even to scream. It was early twilight, no one was about. By some miracle or weakened pulse in the circuit, she broke free, threw herself off and into the water. We are near the coast, not too far inland. Otherwise there might have been fresh snow, branches laid over with crystalline webs obviating any need for lights.

In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.

December 27, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Without

This entry is part 22 of 22 in the series Alternate Histories

Because the electric guitar had no hole,
in the middle of a song
the old bluesman lowered his mouth to it
& plucked the strings with his gold-
capped teeth.

Because the sawhorse had no head,
it didn’t know which way to run
when a plank saddled it,
& it let the saw whinny
for both of them.

Because the hermit had no wife,
he bought a clock
with a loud tick
& wound it faithfully once a week
with a little brass key.

Because the trailer had no cellar,
its inhabitants rushed out
& threw themselves into a ditch
when the tornado came howling
its one blue note.

December 26, 2012December 27, 2012 by Luisa A. Igloria

Niños Inocentes

“By by, lully, lullay…” ~ Coventry Carol

“someone if asked would find nothing remarkable in today’s date…” ~ Dennis O’Driscoll

It’s evening, and raining. The parents have gone inside, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles, the cousins visiting from out of town who remind us not to believe everything that other people say, nor lend out any amount of money on this feast day. We get to work, setting aside torn wrappers, ribbons, boxes for delayed trash pickup Saturday or for recycling next Tuesday. Someone says, as dishes are rinsed and put away, Can you imagine returning gifts you bought for Christmas for your little one who will never walk through the door again? The last thing we ate was a square of yellow cheese, a piece of plain bologna. Nobody touched the carrot cake. Blobs of holly, dark red clusters droop over the neighbor’s fence. Some shingles on the roof will need replacing. The gutter may need to be cleaned. And water runs continuously in the tank of the downstairs toilet. I used to have a number I could call; no matter, tomorrow will serve just as well. My friend on a cruise down the banks of the Rhine emailed to marvel at the Christmas markets and bazaars in town after little town, the wooden toys, the cookies flecked with pepper and warm spice. My son came to me in a dream last night, she wrote; in the dream, he was very young, he was laughing and running down the main street of our home town. I gave chase, caught up with him. I woke breathless, as if it were true and he hasn’t been gone now for 9 long years. When I woke, the light was pale yellow through the window. Dear G, here, where I am, it is long past evening; but even in the dark, there is something musk-tender; a little sad, solemnly sweet.

In response to Via Negativa: The slaughter of the innocents.

December 26, 2012December 26, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Christmas birthday

Dick Jones’ Patteran Pages:

I carry my
old year tenderly

like something
breathing still, but
barely: I have to

bend to listen
and the whispers
are all memories

that shift across
each other like
blown leaves.

December 26, 2012 by Dave Bonta

The slaughter of the innocents

slow reads:

Something you don’t see in a Christmas pageant: the slaughter of the innocents. But there it is, in the middle of Matthew’s account.

When Bethlehem’s young children were slain, Jesus was in Egypt. Joseph had been warned in a dream.

But Moses was already in Egypt. As an infant, he escaped by water, the means by which his pursuers were to perish.

Matthew’s baby Jesus is peripatetic, dodging bullets & fulfilling scripture. “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” “He shall be called a Nazarene.”

Luke: baby Jesus with the lambs. Matthew: baby Jesus on the lam.

December 25, 2012September 17, 2015 by Luisa A. Igloria

[poem removed by author]

In response to Via Negativa: White Christmas.

December 25, 2012 by Dave Bonta

Touching the water

Creature of the Shade:

So why water? Things present themselves most intensely right at the edge of their absence. This is the intrinsic drama of the urban waterfront — so much complexity right up against what reads to us as vast emptiness. Touching a large body of water is a contact-with-the-infinite that intensifies my sensation of the richness of the finite. So, after touching the water, I turn back — to the city or landscape that was behind me — and can how feel (not just know) that I’m seeing something that is vulnerable, contingent, even doomed sooner or later, and therefore real.