Well, I deliberately wanted to read something trying
for some kind of extremes and read something leveled, that
at least purports to be a message you wouldn't want
too reserved a speaker and so on,
and all this grim background.
And then this other, in order to try to reach and think of us
today in class, or trying to muster a definition for poetry.
And one of them would be, if anything is said in such a way
or put on the page in such a way as to invite
from the hearer or the reader, a certain kind of attention.
And I say this defensively, about that one "Religion Back
Home."
It was published as a poem, but I
have to have a definition, sort of like that one I just
gave in order to qualify.
"Thinking For Berky."
In the late night, listening from bed,
I've joined the ambulance, or the patrol
screaming toward some drama.
The kind of end that Berky must have someday,
if she isn't dead.
The wildest of all, her father and mother cruel.
Farming out there beyond the old stone
quarry, where high school lovers parked their lurching cars.
Berky learned to love in that dark school.
Early her face was turned away from home,
toward any hardworking place, but still
her soul with terrible things to do was alive.
Looking out for the rescue that surely someday
would have to come.
Windiest night, Berky I have thoughts for you.
And no matter how lucky I've been, I've touched wood.
There are things not solved in our town, though tomorrow came.
There are things time passing, can never make come true.
We live in an occupied country, misunderstood.
Justice will take us millions of intricate moves.
Sirens will hunt down Berky, you survivors in your beds.
While in the night, you lie so far and good.