A Stone for Mark
The stone was one of the large river stones
Mark collected in the Japanese tradition
of suiseki. Picture him in denim overalls,
a red bandana tied around his bald head,
his pant legs wet up to the knees, lumbering
among the boulders near the river’s edge,
a weighty stone hoisted in one hand,
the other keeping balance with a long staff—
like some benevolent shepherd of the rocks.
On a day in late June, our group of nine—
Mark’s friends, his children, and our own—
climbed Mt. Greylock, carrying the stone
in a backpack, passing it from one to another,
though really his sons did most of the carrying.
One of us had come up with the idea; another,
with a talent for stone carving, had chiseled
Mark’s slanting, cursive M into the stone.
The whole way up, thrushes sang through the trees.
Our destination was a waterfall
three-quarters of the way up the mountain.
Twenty yards downstream, one of Mark’s sons
found a mossy cleft in the rock-strewn bank,
where he placed the stone (smooth and rounded,
unlike those around it), and where it sat, half-hidden
—for how long? A year later, when some of us returned,
the stone was gone. We searched for an hour,
up and down the stream, but never found it.
Had the stone been swept away in the spring snowmelt?
Too heavy, we decided. Had someone taken it—
some Matthew or Michael, or Margaret,
beguiled by that elegant initial? Unsettled,
we peered into the empty, shadowed niche
as into a looted grave, and told ourselves
that it would be okay, that Mark
would want his absence left unmarked
except by spray that lifted from the stream.
Blackbirds
The European blackbird
is a much better singer
than the blackbirds at home,
and now I’ve found
that my own poems
sound better in Italian.
This morning I heard
two of them read aloud,
and they sounded
far more mellifluous
than they do in English,
as though written
by a poet more elegant
and serious than I am,
from another era
and wearing a glossy
black cape like the wings
of the blackbird
whose silvery trills
spilled down from the tops
of the umbrella pines
when I stepped
into the garden,
content just to listen.
Miracle of the Fish
Picking dandelions for my mother,
I wandered into the yard next door
where, when I looked up, I found
the two sisters who lived there.
The elder was cutting the heads off fish
with a big knife. Then the younger one
took the fish inside, but not long after
brought them out again, their heads
restored. Then the older sister
sliced off their heads once more.
This was repeated several times:
the girl took the headless fish inside
then brought them back out, whole again.
Amazed, I asked, “How did you do that?”
“I just took them to the kitchen sink,”
the girl said, “and ran cold water over them,”
as if those simple words explained
what feels, even now, beyond telling.