Some of these poems are from a manuscript
to be published one day, called Practical Gods,
in which I try certain religious perspectives on for size.
I'm not a believer, but the questions
that some religions raise are of great interest to me.
And I try and engage them in kind of dialogue
in these poems.
This first poem is called "Gelati," which
is "ice cream," in Italian.
Limonata, which comes up, is lemonade in Italian.
"These songs from the corner church,
wafting through the window this August morning,
lift the job of sanding my scarred oak bookcase from a 3,
on a 10-point scale of joy, to at least a 4.
Not a bad grade for an enterprise mainly practical.
Repairing a site fittingly handsome for a noble shelf load
of Roman Stoics, whose sensible pages, stacked now
on my speakers, don't register on the joy chart.
A cold wind blows from their doctrine,
that a virtuous life is in harmony with the cosmos,
the cold companionless cosmos that never comes
through when you need a friend.
No wonder the early Christians wanted followers.
No wonder their living descendants, sound joyful
still, as they proclaim that even here,
near the corner of Hodge and Elmwood,
the soul may be quickened.
These singers have had a brush with vision denied me so far.
Though once, on the Appian Way, three miles outside
of Rome, after I'd walked for hours inspecting
the roadside tombs alone, in the heat of August,
wishing I'd brought a water jug, ready to turn back,
a man pushing a cart suddenly staged an Advent, as he intoned
limonata, gelati, as if to a crowd,
though the road was empty.
An old man with a bright escutcheon
of ice cream staining his apron, proclaiming that to ask
is to have for the lucky few who know what to ask for.
For a minute, it seemed the Bureau of Joy
was calling about a windfall blowing my way,
to guarantee an 8 or 9 on the joy chart,
even if many wishes down on my list wouldn't be granted.
Today, I seem to be focusing on my wish to sand
and stain and varnish my bookcase,
the job that a monk who specializes in repetition
might embrace is a ritual.
Let the moment expand, he says to himself,
till time is revealed to be delusion.
For me, here in the passing hour,
the windborne singing brightens the moment,
however faintly it enters, however
it might be improved by the brighter acoustics of the New
Jerusalem.
And now it's time for a string quartet and a new recording.
And now it's time for the baseball game on the radio.
Whether the players regard the sport as joy or simply as work,
the crowd seems alive with the wish
to compress a lifetime down to a single sitting.
Now for the task of brushing the varnish
on with a steady hand, while the crowd goes wild
in the bottom of the ninth.
There's a man on first, steps off the bag.
A rookie will seem a savior if he gets home."