April 12, 2018: The Universe as Primal Scream, Tracy K. Smith
The Universe as Primal Scream
Tracy K. Smith
5pm on the nose. They open their mouths
And it rolls out: high, shrill and metallic.
First the boy, then his sister. Occasionally,
They both let loose at once, and I think
Of putting on my shoes to go up and see
Whether it is merely an experiment
Their parents have been conducting
Upon the good crystal, which must surely
Lie shattered to dust on the floor.
Maybe the mother is still proud
Of the four pink lungs she nursed
To such might. Perhaps, if they hit
The magic decibel, the whole building
Will lift-off, and we’ll ride to glory
Like Elijah. If this is it—if this is what
Their cries are cocked toward—let the sky
Pass from blue, to red, to molten gold,
To black. Let the heaven we inherit approach.
Whether it is our dead in Old Testament robes,
Or a door opening onto the roiling infinity of space.
Whether it will bend down to greet us like a father,
Or swallow us like a furnace. I’m ready
To meet what refuses to let us keep anything
For long. What teases us with blessings,
Bends us with grief. Wizard, thief, the great
Wind rushing to knock our mirrors to the floor,
To sweep our short lives clean. How mean
Our racket seems beside it. My stereo on shuffle.
The neighbor chopping onions through a wall.
All of it just a hiccough against what may never
Come for us. And the kids upstairs still at it,
Screaming like the Dawn of Man, as if something
They have no name for has begun to insist
Upon being born.
==
More like this: Another Reason Why I Don ’t Keep a Gun in the House, Billy Collins
Also by Tracy K. Smith: I Don’t Miss It
On this day in:
2017: Soul, David Ferry
2016: Turkeys, Galway Kinnell
2015: He Said Turn Here, Dean Young
2014: I Don’t Miss It, Tracy K. Smith
2013: Hotel Orpheus, Jason Myers
2012: Emily Dickinson’s To-Do List, Andrea Carlisle
2011: Now That I Am in Madrid and Can Think, Frank O’Hara
2010: The Impossible Marriage, Donald Hall
2009: The Rider, Naomi Shihab Nye
2008: from Homage to Mistress Bradstreet, John Berryman
2007: This Heavy Craft, P.K. Page
2006: Late Ripeness, Czeslaw Milosz
2005: A Martian Sends A Postcard Home, Craig Raine
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