BY NATE KLUG
at plots of budless brush
stop, as if remembering,
and stoop to mouth the names—
araucaria
araucana, monkey
puzzle tree, something
Japanese—each particular
ridiculous to be.
BY NATE KLUG
to assume again
an order
at the end
of wonder
to conjure
and then to keep
slow dirty sleet
within its streetlight
BY NATE KLUG
a further light will
trick its way inside
the linoleum until
each tile—such is
the raging within
unfinished things—
flickers and swims
in its own negative.
BY NATE KLUG
Salt grime and the foodcarts’
rising steam, at Prospect St. a goshawk
huge and aloof, picking at something,
nested in twigs and police tape
for a while we all
held our phones up
It is relentless, the suddenness
of every other
song, creature, neighbor
as though this life
would prove you
only by turning into itself
BY NATE KLUG
BY DAVID BAKER
If things were worse, this cursed rain
would soak me unto sickness,
so Samuel Sewall might have
written in his vespers journal.
I have it on my writing desk
inside. For three days I have
labored with a saw and plane
and many boards to make my girl
a swingset near her mother’s
lilac shrubs, as rain has drizzled
cold and meaningless. How
coherent was his world of works
and days, when Plentifull Rains
might connote a coming
providence—so Sewall notes
of Her Majesty’s Court, June
the eighteenth, seventeen twelve.
We are well satisfyed with the Layin out
of our Money—
as on the same day clearly he
is mindful to remember that
Just before Sunset was a very NOBLE Rainbow,
one foot was between the Windmill, and the
Lazar house; other, on Dorchester Neck.
How faithful is the mind in
memory, connecting signs.
As the body of the Word
of God strides His world, so
Sam.’s determination to forge
meaning from his life’s &c.
The day before, just this:
Great Heat, Much Rain.
Bulbs of lilac blooms burn like
black lights in the twilight. Rain
ascends in a mist where it has
fallen to the rich new grass.
It’s Sunday, nearly dark, and
tomorrow I’m back in class to
shape my working days. I think
of him who keeps the task of church
and colony. He leans each night
long over paper waiting
on his writing desk. She can’t wait,
my girl, to play on her swings.
Saw the New-raised meeting-house, 60. foot
long, 40. foot wide. Got to Cousin Woodbridge’s
a little before Sunset. Saw an appearance of
a Rainbow-Colour about the bigness of a piece
of Timber one foot square and four foot long.
When I had turn ’d from it, Somebody, call’d
to me to look on the Sight; and then it was
dilated like an Ensign with several bars in it.
Saw my daughter Judith.
It’s what we connect. It’s how
we join each thing with care. If I
soap a screw to drive it smoother,
if I run the ripsaw straight
against the wood grain down the meat
of my thumb, if the brackets hold,
if swivels keep the swings aligned,
it’s because my father passed
a memory of such things to me.
Now I only work to make a toy.
My colleagues call that irony.
(Our meager making wants to
theorize each life we touch to death.)
If things were worse, I don’t know if
I could make a living with my hands.
If things were worse than that, I could.
The Rainbow was very bright, and the Reflection
of it caused another faint Rainbow to the
westward of it. For the entire Compleateness
of it, throughout the whole Arch, and for its
duration, the like has been rarely seen. The
middle parts were discontinued for a while; but
the former Integrity and Splendor were quickly
Recovered. I hope this is a sure Token that
CHRIST Remembers his Covenant, and that He will
make haste to prepare for them a City that has
foundations, whose Builder and Maker is GOD.
My father circles in his
anger now. A stroke like lightning
shot his carotid artery one day.
He forgets himself. I’m worried
that my daughter may recall
my temper only, or my
little soul, my careless way
of cutting others down. The rage
for meaning makes us look for things
in other things, makes us hope
we see the future when we barely
see the day. I’ve beheld my girl
angry, impatient with the smallest
cause, cruel beyond her years.
Mrs. Sarah Banister, widow, dyes between 3
and 4 P.M., being drown’d with Dropsie.
News comes that Capt. Carver is Taken by two
Privateers. Just as had written this I went to look
of the Rain at my East-Chamber window, and
saw a perfect Rainbow. I think the setting of
the Sun caus’d its Disappearance. Laus Deo.
I put one good board beside
another and screw them down—so
things won’t come apart, so she
won’t fall. I think we wish too hard
for sense when what we want
is wonder, swinging on a toy.
I love the life we’ve made despite
our carelessness. I love the care.
Great rain with Thunder. Mr. Wadsworth
preaches: Work out your Salvation with Fear.
One night later, one more entry,
so Sewall becomes his vision.
Last night I dreamed that I had my daughter
Hirst in a little Closet to pray with her;
and of a sudden she was gon, I could not
tell how; although the Closet was so small,
and not Cumber’d with Chairs or Shelves,
I was much affected with it when I waked.
The mind is faithful in its
memory—connecting signs,
it makes a memory
to connect to what it needs.
The body will forget us all
anyway, in time, as it forgets
its breath, and how to live,
how to forgive. I keep this
story close whenever I grieve
or fear, growing cold. A father
and his child wait through a storm.
Great rain with Thunder. Fear has
drenched the child. (Is this my father,
or me, my girl, or someone
in a book? I don’t remember.
Forgetfulness has taken part
of me already—besides,
it doesn’t matter.) The child cries,
I’m scared, to which the father
whispers, holding on, Don’t worry,
little one. I’ll stay with you until
it’s over. It’s what he means by
Rainbow in the evening.
Some are in bed-sheets, some are in blouses,
Some are in smocks: but truly there they are.
Now they are rising together in calm swells
Of halcyon feeling, filling whatever they wear
With the deep joy of their impersonal breathing;
Now they are flying in place, conveying
The terrible speed of their omnipresence, moving
And staying like white water; and now of a sudden
They swoon down into so rapt a quiet
That nobody seems to be there.
The soul shrinks
From all that it is about to remember,
From the punctual rape of every blessèd day,
And cries,
“Oh, let there be nothing on earth but laundry,
Nothing but rosy hands in the rising steam
And clear dances done in the sight of heaven.”
Yet, as the sun acknowledges
With a warm look the world’s hunks and colors,
The soul descends once more in bitter love
To accept the waking body, saying now
In a changed voice as the man yawns and rises,
“Bring them down from their ruddy gallows;
Let there be clean linen for the backs of thieves;
Let lovers go fresh and sweet to be undone,
And the heaviest nuns walk in a pure floating
Of dark habits,
keeping their difficult balance.”
