More Than Poetry

It takes more than poetry

to fashion a gentleman.

Not every book opened

is a Bildungsroman.

 

I tell myself this

as I look in the mirror

at the old man

looking back at me.

 

He has learned nothing

I know,

 

(the comma is in the right place,

think about it, go on, do).

 

I know the sound of a telephone bell,

a school bell, an ice-cream chime,

for whom the bell tolls,

the difference between tocsin

and toxin.

 

I know the way to San José,

to Amarillo, to Mandalay

- there is no road -

the connection between route

and rout.

 

I know the scent of a woman,

the ascent of man, the dissent of Quakers,

the crescent of a waning moon,

the influence of accent

on sense.

 

There was a dog

we gave away,

he might have liked Singapore

but he couldn’t afford the air fare.

I didn’t see him die,

so he can’t have done:

there is no empirical proof.

We do not know whose ashes

are in the jar.

 

I will deny my father’s death too.

After all, he has already gone,

his body no more than an urn,

a vessel, a container

for the ashes

of his mind.

 

I tell myself this,

as I look in the mirror

at my father’s ghost

looking back at me

 

Footnote: Bildungsroman: A novel in which the hero receives an education, or learns some important life lessons. Sometimes called a coming of age novel.