Thomas McAfee

My gift is gaining. Call it paradox. The thing I do not have, a yellow bird, I gladly give and gain it. I take it from a purple tree With purple boughs and leaves.

Or take it from some oak so ordinary, Slanting towards the street, Not even birds remember it, Not even birds with bleached brown wings.

But gained I give it up, Because the yellow bird was there And what I give I gain.

Most of us spend most of our lives Climbing in and out of wombs, Bitching about bad coffee and too wet Martinis. Most of us lust for, more than love, Our wives, waitresses, and celluloid sirens.

But a few seem to move to the total horror Of ennui, to wake tired at morning, To be glad to face another alley, rather Than to go on for another hour with the sheets, Fighting the nightmares that gang up.

Those few are real and positive. They know What misery and terror really are. They're usually the very last ones to bitch. They go off somewhere to drink in a bar Or cry or quietly to kill themselves.

She told me that in the Philippines, As they all sat on the veranda, Bats would come up in hordes— Small-bodied bats with great wing-spread— Like clouds of rain.

While they all sat, she said, With their bamboo glasses And smelled the beginnings of evening, They remarked the bats only an instant Between the casual gossip.

Now, she said, those miles away And years away, she remembered the bats But none of the talk, Not one living soul! Except a young man, exceedingly drunk, Who told her bats were important.

Poor Hogan wept so wearily At everything's transparency: Hearts and lovers, pretty faces, All that cruel Time erases;

But Hogan wept more wearily At his own transparency: No heart, no love, no pretty face, Nothing at all Time could erase.

The scene from a window may excite a guilt, Snow and smoke together towards the street. In a warm room sometimes the cold is a quilt To ease whatever wrong and help repeat The wrong. Today, my novel put aside, Another man's adventure gives no calm, For I have hurt my brother, even tried His heart. His bleeding wound is in my palm.

Authority of roses protects us from Our rural selves: we take off overalls And denim shirts to admire the rose bushes.

On Sunday afternoons we put on a dark blue tie, Gray trousers, to greet guests beside the blossoms. Ladies delight at the "Talisman" And we delight ourselves at playing gentlemen. A drink in hand, proper words in our mouths We convince ourselves of our meaning.

All this is important, even though Night may find us brutal, Throwing shoes at a bathroom wall, Cursing through the door At a wife in bed and crying.

Now I am named a father to this child The stars are not so easy to accept: Each foot of night blue heaven is a wild Presentiment; the blazing moon, once kept Romantic by the sonneteer, is gray, Deep-pocked—an impotent, unlovely child Of Earth and Sun. This other child, my son, Has made me look too close: the natural way To look again with half-shut eyes. The one Course left for me is by the harsher say Of reason, so that I may see each thing For its sad worth, and those few lovely joys. And so that I may teach myself to sing Instructive songs, and give instructive toys.

Greatness tends to slink In times of stress, And men grow cold Within the moment waited for. The hour of dawn is always less Than what it seemed to be before.

Children see Heroic fathers pale, And mothers sometimes leave Their babes to burn.

The mind is stern till blinded by its tears. The eyeless heart cannot endure its years.