To Hear The Faint Sound

I Would Say Pittsburgh Softly Each Time Before Throwing Him Up. Whisper Pittsburgh With My Mouth Against The Tiny Ear And Throw Him Higher. Pittsburgh And Happiness High Up. The Only Way To Leave Even The Smallest Trace. So That All His Life Her Son Would Feel Gladness Unaccountably When Anyone Spoke Of The Ruined City Of Steel In America. Each Time Almost Remembering Something Maybe Important That Got Lost.

You Will Love Again, People Say. Give It Time. Me With Time Running Out. Day After Day Of The Everyday. What They Call Real Life, Made Of Eighth-inch Gauge. Newness Strutting Around As If It Were Significant. Irony, Neatness And Rhyme Pretending To Be Poetry. I Want To Go Back To That Time After Michiko's Death When I Cried Every Day Among The Trees. To The Real. To The Magnitude Of Pain, Of Being That Much Alive.

Being Alive Is So Extraordinary I Don’t Know Why People Limit It To Riches, Pride, Security—all Of Those Things Life Is Built On. People Miss So Much Because They Want Money And Comfort And Pride, A House And A Job To Pay For The House. And They Have To Get A Car. You Can’t See Anything From A Car. It’s Moving Too Fast. People Take Vacations. That’s Their Reward—the Vacation. Why Not The Life?

We Must Unlearn The Constellations To See The Stars.

The Woman Is Not Just A Pleasure, Nor Even A Problem. She Is A Meniscus That Allows The Absolute To Have A Shape, That Lets Him Skate However Briefly On The Mystery, Her Presence Luminous On The Ordinary And The Grand. Like The Odor At Night In Pittsburgh’s Empty Streets After Summer Rain On Maples And Sycamore.