walk on by

for Glenn Macdonald

looking back
all that I imagine
makes some sense

no matter how dark the day
or how we huddle in the dust

waiting for the winds to stop

and all
that I imagine

makes some sense

even as we gaze
still from the canvas

as subjects

holding time

our eyes surfacing
in these portraits

the haunting moment

barren and still, moves through us again and again,

one of the eternities that we discuss
here, in these shadows
as we stand between the cracking paint
and the panic that is the future

*

here is looking at you
young nephew
among the frenzy and the practice

your starry eyes
a natural state

my eyes
the freeze frame

and all that I imagine
making some sense

perhaps during a colloquial stay
or in a difficult narrative,

abruptly lucid

in the field
that gesture and gaze yield,

the latitude we may appropriate as beacons of memory

*

I cannot choose memory
any more than you can choose the day we celebrate your name

or the day that any of us can choose
to understand
momentarily
the dislocating jump-cut in the story, the variation on theme that flies outside,
the terminal disorder, the curious kindness

the friendly stranger

an intimate

who is no longer

I remember

another character

another cut
figure
I pass along the way
who has nothing to do with my colloquial stay

I walk on by
and sing

the difficult narrative
making sense

*

you make sense boy

you overstep the explosion

that brings you here

and you keep growing

healthy and strapping

pushing us away and heaving aside
the decay

and all that is yet unknown to you

and I am not so innocent to speak of innocence any more

unless I speak of joy in experience

and joy in the knowing of joy

and boy
the road to joy is magic
and the road to magic is joy

and all eyes gaze from the moment
that haunts

and in the difficult narrative

each character is a barrier
and an answer

and we decide when to stop and chat

or when to keep our eyes dead ahead
and walk

September 3 1995