in praise of soundpictures

Tonight at the Met I grew new ears.

Distracted by the large renaissance gate,

I was hoodwinked into the armor room

and wound around large metal wasps.

It took several turns to wind a way back out.

In the narrow corridor around the stairs,

past celtic stones and crosses,

I heard two sounds as I passed

a large man who walked with a tilt

and two small boys, one at either flank:

"Turn right Dad...now left..."

The blind man led by his waist-high

child tilted and turned,

his cane tucked under an elbow,

his glassy eyes dark and skyward.

What had they come to see?

Did the boys choose their favorite rooms,

or did their father guide them to the pieces

he wanted them to learn?

Did they describe pieces to him,

tell him soundpictures?

Surely he listened
to the silence of the pool
by the Temple of Dendur
and glided soft fingertip pads
over heiroglyphs;
a blind man reading ancient
imaged script as braille
while the people around him
lean on stone and exhale echoes.

After this you glide across marble floors

chewing on such a collision.

And when you leave, your ears have grown.

Outside, the night hums.

Taxi meters tick.

Lights click to turn.

A doorman whistles.

The street hushes with a low wind,

and the city bares a new layer of presence.

a resolution to be more like my infant niece

upon becoming fatigued wondering what the point is
of considering the preoccupations of man
i've decided to cast all else aside

if i could go back far enough
to master the look of the day-old child
striving for the clarity to understand her mother's face
her innocent puzzling, her wide eyes, the curve of wordless lips

i would have said it all.

i will repeat her name,
repeat it again,
and call her innocence to my hands and tongue.

praise:

I count your vertebrae like stones
stretched across the river
that yawns in the open night.

You gnaw at my ribs and birds fly free.
We are splayed like fish.
I wear you close as an orange to its peel.

You, such a lion in sheep's skin;
what have you come for?
To count my vertebrae,
count them like stones

I, your casualty
and the river rushing,
the open skin,
and the teeth of night.