All The Men Went
All the men went to the mines and my grandfather carried a canary in a small cage. When the bird expired he chose to stay as the others rushed to air. At his funeral Mass in the church he never entered, a choir sang Danny Boy that was his drinking song. No one understood his choice to lay beside his pick and sleep; but I had spent a night in his home when I was small and called down for his company. He lay beside me and explained how the light that reflects through a prism is a true division of a miracle and this was joyous to him to know and he described the tracks of carts carrying coal and the flashing lamps of fellow gods and he recounted, touching my hair, the Iliad and Apollo of the sky on a knee, firing arrows in single beams. He was without vice: but when the elevator ascended from the shaft in daylight savings time, grand- mother told me he disappeared to land for sale and tasted the rich black soil of Illinois with a spoon. I think, and write, of ultra violet and infra red light that vibrates in every kind of molecule, even cloud drops, in a music for grandfather and choice mythology. Charles Bane, Jr. Charles Bane, Jr. is the author of The Chapbook (Curbside Splendor) , Love Poems (Aldrich Press) , and Three Seasons: Writing Donald Hall (Collection of Houghton Library, Harvard University). He created and contributes to The Meaning Of Poetry series for The Gutenberg Project, and is a current nominee as Poet Laureate of Florida. |