Watching Hawks Soar

by J. K. Durick
               
As a child I lived in a world of pigeons and sparrows
An occasional robin thrown in to mark the spring –
A lot of flock and flutter, of tweet and twitter;
The most ferocious thing, a cat or dog, plump
Domesticated beings chasing, if they did, birds
More out of sense of obligation than anything primal;
They were all background noise, minor players at best;
We’d scatter stale bread crumbs and rarely pause
To watch in the birdwatcher sense, they were
There and little else, part of the time and place;
But now things happen on a much grander scale
These hawks, aloof, untouchable, know the lift
Of wind currents, ride thermals, hover watching
Selecting their prey, a pigeon, a sparrow, a hapless
Mouse or two; their quiet beauty, their potential
Violence command, demand, our attention as part
Of our time and this place.

Two Deaths

by J. K. Durick

My brother always said he be dead
Before he was twenty-one, said he’d
Die and he did, in the middle of a
Summer night coming home from a
Bar, drunk behind the wheel, dead,
And just nineteen years old, dead in
The middle of the road, road-kill
I never saw but have imagined all
These years, the images haunt me
Dead before he was twenty-one.
Even his dog outlived him; years
Later I took her to the vets the final
Time, she was old and sick, had lost
Control of everything; I held her
When the vet shot her with whatever
They shot into dogs back then,
At first she wiggled, strained a bit,
Then one last groan and she was gone
Gone off perhaps to finally catch up
With him, my brother; like me,
She had waited nights, waited for
His return for years, and then she
Would have to wait no more.

Driving Blind

by J. K. Durick

Before the ultimate - the mountain road
at midnight, downtown traffic, midday -
you should practice, take 'er out
on a familiar stretch, like here to the store
or even more, from home to cousin Farley's,
just beyond the one lane bridge in Bethel,
the way you've been over and over
like a cliche you say so often
the car could do it without you.

It's worth the risk you spend -
you close your eyes, give way to sounds
and a falling; you fall into cozy darkness
that's yours, a pleasure you relax into
with time - your grip loosens;
your body begins to dream, lighten, lift....

Here's a privacy, almost complete -
Beethoven's ninth with full chorus plays;
the tires hiss, bump slightly, hum;
breezes stir, you move further along,
teeter on the edge of dreams; you float, then fly;
beyond the bounds of sight
you become a part of the night -
as startled, as aware.

Empties

 by J. K. Durick         

They didn’t come this way, full of promise and potential back then,
But this is their destiny, the end result of their design, their promise,
In this case emptiness is fulfillment, something they finally achieved.

They line up on counters and tables, pile in the sink, one or two roll
Under the couch, reminders, a measure of things that were and will be,
Part of the debris we leave behind, markers of our beginnings and end.

Later, of course, we’ll bag them up and bring them back, fill our day,
As empty as it might be, with empties, get our deposit back, ransom
Paid we return them back to be filled full of our/their lives once more.

Near here it’s called “the redemption center,” back of the Bottle Store
We line up, bumper to bumper, bags full, trunks full, pickups loaded
Down full of our empties, redemption should always be just this easy

A Few Other Things

by J. K. Durick 

The list we prepared and
Followed religiously through
The aisles, ticking off each
Item as if it were a mission
Accomplished didn’t work,
So this is the backup plan
The one we build into most
Things we do, a do-over
A slight correction that we
Build into the day, this other
Me returning to fix things up
The better me who knows
Now what’s missing from
That first go-round, the better
Shopper with his new list
The list of the missed items
To be ticked off, a check
Next to these other things
We needed badly enough
That I return, the ghost of
Visits past, the corrective
Angel finishing things up.

Stillness

 by J. K. Durick 

There’s a silence in human sound, despite
Its bravado – there, just beyond its bite, its
Bluster. A silence in highway sounds, all night;
The early throat-clear of trucks and trains; even
The light lapse of lawn the newsboy makes, his step;
The paper properly folded, finally, quiet in the door.

There’s a silence in human sound, a silence
Running down to a stillness I stretch, stammer
To avoid, talk aloud to myself, if I must, run radios
Televisions, anything, hum some, drum some,
But it’s there – call my friend, his dead silence
Frightens me, I can hear it in his voice.

Map

by J. K. Durick                 

Now we know the distances and begin
To measure the time we’ll spend;
This is the mother-lode, the raw
Materials of journeys, of visits, of
Getting away, of arriving there at last;

Its legend and lines, place names
And route numbers, the slight color
Variations to mark mountains and
Forests, various forms of water,
Rivers, lakes and the like, assure us,
Provide us with a plan to go on;

We unfold it, and then lay it out full
On the floor, on the kitchen table,
Draw a line with our eye, set up
The trip in our minds, imagine all
The turns and towns along the way,
The best places to stop for food, for
Gas, for just stretching, walking a bit;

Things like these can’t be left to chance,
We rarely just set out as if destinations
Didn’t matter, as if we were explorers
As if guidance wasn’t always available,

Instead we head out, catch 189, then 89
Heading east, call ahead for reservations,
Watch mile-markers and exit signs, and
Keep the map, folded just right, handy
Ready to consult, always ready to confirm
We are exactly where we need to be.

An Important Remake

by J. K. Durick
   
We are getting to retake some of the scenes
Fix the things that went wrong the first time
Around, and the film editor has been busy
Cutting, splicing, making things look better
Than they did, jump cut, invisible cut, finally
Fixing my place in things; of course, makeup
And the costumer did their parts, dressed me
Pressed me, even made my ears look smaller
And me a bit taller than before, and we made
Other changes, the screenwriter was replaced
By a script doctor, pages and pages of fluff
Disappeared, special effects were added, and
A full set of stuntmen brought in, this time
I won’t have to actually fall down those stairs
Or be launched over the handlebars, so much
Of my painful childhood will be done this time
By someone else; the grips and gaffers, even
The best boys were all in line behind scenes
Managing the wires and props properly, no
Lights out or tripping up in this latest version;
And after the wrap, when everything was finally
In the can, the director called the cast and crew
Together, popped a bottle of good champagne,
Turned to me and said, “here’s looking at you”
But this time, no close-up in the scene,

Bad Dog

by J. K. Durick

Good and bad are simple concepts
In the canine world, while arbitrary
At times, they summarize so much:
Good gets gentle words and pats on
The head, a treat or two, or perhaps
A chance to go along one more time,
And bad, the other paw in this parade,
Gets angry words, a hand or foot out
Of nowhere slapping, kicking, another
Tug on the choke collar, or time spent
In the too tight kennel they kept for
Moments like this; in the end, it’s just
A matter of reward and punishment,
Like we get so often; when good we get
Good words, good grades, all the extras,
Privileges and paychecks, pomp and
Playthings, a cozy life in comfortable
Surroundings; but bad we get other
Things, more guilt than glory, smaller
Checks, pink slips and traffic tickets,
Doors closing and busy signals, empty
Promises and pockets, all the next to
Nothing they hand us grudgingly –
All a matter of punishment and reward,
So we sit up nicely, rarely bark and
Wag our tails, hoping they notice.

Nathaniel’s First Car

by J. K. Durick 

There was this clumping, then bumping,
Something in there had been clanging,
Then something was banging,
But now it all has stopped.

This is not the way this should be.
The road-side grows green with it –
Your money, your first claim of ownership
Become this empty sleeve, this third
Left boot, this vast array of I-told-you-so.
Your key chain has become ironic, like
The silent disk player or the stick-shift
You’ve finally learned to play.

This is not the way this should be.
There should be hours, there should be
Grace in this, the just return on the time
You spent dreaming of it. The freedom
It was to be has become this dark joke,
This dark reminder of the innocence
You spent on it, this monument to loss,
This monument to your new uncertainty.

This is not the way this should be.
You’re too young to be this tired of things.
Too young to know what every one must
Someday know – the irreversible nature of loss.

This is not the way this should be.
You should be driving off into the distance –
Your present assured, the future a mystery.
That is the way it all should be.

Day

by J. K. Durick 

The road
Stirs up its dust
To mark my
Progress
With the taste of
White-tan powder on
My feet
And clothes.
It’s an August
Afternoon and I’m
Becoming part of the
Day I want to be.

Something New

 by J. K. Durick     

It’s the newness of the new that’s endearing,
the pristine feel of it, the un-faded glory of it,
the way it makes us want more, and to go on
and on with beginnings, and starting points,
and breaking things in, the getting to know
a harmless unknown.

It’s the time before routine and the expected
give it that familiar foreign feel  and wear us
down with it, tire it and us to a silence that
aging makes of all things, once new and then
just waiting to disappear, but today that seems
far away, impossible.

It’s the way the first robin or snowstorm makes
us feel, new again, even when we know how
naïve that is, how repetition and time will win
out again, but, of course, we’ll welcome the next
robin, the first few flakes falling, we’ll run out
to see the newness of things.

Town Dump

by J. K. Durick     

Now it’s a “drop off center,” sanitized, de-people-ized,
ecologically friendly and all. The guy at the gate rings us in,
measures and marks us, sends us on our way to sort
our dropped off leavings – metals here and paper there,
and glass and such somewhere else, and the re-usables
get stacked to one side for pickers to pick, they descend
like crows on road kill and drag it away. All day, every day,
it’s this way, our calculated response to the mess we make.
I remember when we drove to the edge of town to dump
what we had on the pile with everyone else’s, a great
equalizer. We’d mix everything together and then bury it
for archeologists to find someday and sort to try to figure
out who we were, this sloppy careless creature we are.

Hallways

by J. K. Durick         

Hospital hallways are filled with
Strange shapes and odd odors
And a beeping that repeats like
A pulse or counting down, or up
To some elusive number of beeps
Rhythmic, hypnotic, the measure
Of this place and its time.

Hospital hallways are filled with
Motion and the sound of people
Caught up in the business of being.
I passed young women who were
Smiling and carrying balloons, and
A groups of medical people chatting
With the importance of themselves.
I passed a whole family who walked
In a daze of what had just happened
Or what was going to happen soon.
A young woman ran by crying and
Weaving through the crowd that gave
Way and seemed disinterested in tears –
Hospital hallways make people act
Like that – self absorbed, insular.

Hospital hallways are filled with
Helpful directions. It’s the blue line
To Baird four today, to my uncle who
At ninety-two is afraid of everything
He says, but not of dying. Yesterday
He said that if he was to stay overnight
He’d need to call home for permission.
Poor John, always the dutiful son,
Always the dutiful brother and uncle,
Poor John, the last of a generation
Waiting at the end of this hallway, at
the end of this blue line, waiting for
me to sit with him and hold his hand.
Perhaps, that’s what all these hallways
are really for.

Teeth

by J. K. Durick
   
In this chair the time
Between these times
Disappears
As if I’ve always been here.
This scraping and prodding
Have gone on since
I was able to sit up
At this angle
My mouth open in awe
Of it all.

In this chair each time
I answer questions
About my brushing
And my flossing –
Parental questions,
And I become
The little boy
Who rides his tricycle
Off the porch
And loses his front tooth,
The boy who sneaks
Off to bed too quickly
Whose mother stands
In the doorway and says,
Did you brush your teeth,
Young man?

In the chair every time
My Catholic conscience
Begins its plans for
The new me,
The guy with a straight
Clean look,
Free of the fog and debris
Of the old me,
A guy untouched by fork
Or food,
A guy free of coffee
And free of tea,

A guy cleared and closed,
Like a summer home
Out on the point –
Distant, pristine,
Out there, away,
Just beyond use, except
The occasional smile.

Adirondacks

by J. K. Durick

Riding on 189, heading west
riding into the afternoon light,
there across Lake Champlain
the Adirondacks line up, fill
the scene, become themselves
their moods, their shapes shift,
one day they’re dark and ominous
another, a soft green greets us,
sometimes they’re pale blue
distant figures in vague outline
the suggestion of mountains
we see in Japanese paintings,
some days the cloud cover plays
tricks with them, some light here,
this peak or that fully lit up
while over there a storm rages
while low clouds, long gray hands
capture others, hold them
in anticipation of sun or snow,
a live Hudson Valley painting,
some days, close and threatening,
other days, like happy memories
worth this afternoon’s drive
into this humbling scene.

In Line

by J. K. Durick         

I’ve stood in this line so long – for hours, seems like days,
Perhaps my whole life – I’m a part, a piece of it.
If we were a chain, I’d be a link. If we were a mile I’d be
A dozen feet or so of this measure of time, of distance.

If spied from space we’d be a careful brush stroke,
A string stretched out, almost taut, almost ready to break.

I’ve stood in this line so long – one in front, one behind,
Then another one in front of that one and one behind,
On and on, sometimes in alphabetical order, sometimes
By height, and then sometimes, like right now, by seniority.

We look straight ahead; rarely talk anymore, the talk once
Helped a bit, but now we shuffle our feet and feel restless.

Drought

by J. K. Durick      

We pray for buckets
and buckets coming down
cats and dogs out there
cellars full and gardens afloat
ornamental bark down the sidewalks
and driveways heading
for a street’s worth
of puddles and gutters
so deep we splash
amazed we remember the games
like kids sailing paper boats
near the curb
pirates after a Spanish galleon
rounding the Cape of Good Hope
with a cargo full of diamonds
as clear and as precious as rain.