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Bravo
For how you’ve lived this long. Bravo because the trees around your house have not yet fallen and the sun’s running the sky. Bravo, Bravo that you’ve remembered to put the key in upside down so the door opens, that the first word you said this morning was “Good.” That you clink bottles together just to hear the “clink.” That someone screwed your head on wrong. Bravo. Bravisimo, that you’re still walking and your hands do more than you’d expect, that birdsongs sound crazy, like tying bubbles in knots, Bravo for ye gods and little fishes, turns in the road and the signs that mark these turns, spumoni, African violets, Apple computers, and bravo, bravo, bravo, the lifting of the curtain and your solo voice on stage, your shout, your cry, Ave Maria. Ave, ave dominus, Dominus tecum, this incredible journey you took and still are taking, that the universe is not an empty dodecahedron, for all that befalls us: rain, snow, spiders, moonlight. . . and for rice pudding, Bravo.
[First published in Smartish Pace. Reprinted by
permission of
o0o o0o o0o o0o o0o o0o
Keats
When you come down out of wilderness everyone looks crazy, even your friends look crazy. I can’t explain it. Everyone looks crazy.
One night, lofted up there, we crawled from our sleeping bags, tent, mosquito netting, and stood under stars like white fine print
on a black page slightly bent over us, and the moon was a well of pale yellow light and the planets unborn.
We stood on the world like two acrobats who have learned to balance themselves on a big circus ball, while it turned,
and then we were nothing but people, with no culture, no gods. America fell, beyond us; around us was fog, or clouds—
no matter. There was no reason to live or to perish; a bird sang off in the woods or a nightingale sang in the forest. [First published in
Regions With No Proper Names, St. Martins.
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