ROBERT
KELLY

Prayer wheel spins,
leaves fall.
The instruction is constant,
a woman’s voice
raised to the boy in the moon.

2.
See and sea
say the same
she said.
The sight of it
rinses clean.
Her tune went like that,
finding the occult in the obvious,
plain as the moon in the sky.

3.
This time of year
she began, remembering
all the others,
eight of us crammed
in a Mahindra Jeep
engine off to save gas
plunging down the mountain road.
No guard rails in human thought.

4.
But could she make sense
without singing?
Could the sun shine
without giving light?
You walk on the rocks
your feet get lost to remember.

5.
Little whirlpool
where the stream bends round,
no danger for us larger beasts
but still. She sat on the bank
and watched the patterns
form and swirl and vanish,
thought This is what I am
and why I am here.
The thought
felt like a prayer
and suddenly she understood
there doesn’t have to be a God
for prayer to work,
song in its own sake lifted.

4 October 2021

Almost as if it had vanished in the night
the learnèd boulevard, the stone
pillars of the mind museum.
Remember that island, church,
parliament, appropriated art,
could be any city, I’ll call it
by some other name, just this once
names don’t matter, it’s Saturday,
they mow lawns, tremble a little
remembering the night. O yes,
that’s where I began, something
vanished in the night, Europe
I think, or Greek Philosophy—
who said we dare think about the world?
Who gave us permission?
Schools are closed on Saturday
tra-la, but shul is busy and lawns
interview the morning sun. Yes.
Something survives. Let it last
in me, in every me you choose to be,
the glory of sheer difference.

2 October 2021

Under the burning coals
the news
of what is to come.

2.
We make it happen
then we blame
the other.

3.
Steiner sussed out
the karmic DNA,
who I was
before I was me
and still was me.

4.
Pilgrims still
from restaurant to restaurant,
did they bake yams
in the Seychelles?
Remember Paris in the April snow?

5.
It catches up with us.
It sings.
Sings until we think
we mean the song.

6.
Love is not what you think,
love is what you do,
and suddenly you surprise yourself. 

7.
Pick the pieces up
a plastic chip, a bottle cap
in a room you never entered
and figure out how they got there.
Hold the plastic in your hand.

8.
Little by little it becomes clear,
a pale bird flies past a tree.

9.
Wrote a long letter
but sealed it quick.
You can never tell
when the words might change. 

10.
Live for me!
he shouted into the mirror.
Glass is delicate, and did.

11.
Sometimes we get close to time
and hear it thinking.
Then the tree shakes its leaves
warningly, and we hurry on.

12.
Never imagine a stone
thinks only one thing.

13.
The nice thing about percolators
is you can see how strong the brew is
by the color of the coffee
as it bubbles up in the little
glass bulb on top.
I mean color tells
when things are right.
I mean color tells.

14.
In that restaurant
the three-star chef
serves only carrots and beets,
sometimes a leaf of chard.
Wealthy patrons book months ahead—
it costs so much to be minimal,
it’s so hard to have less.

15.
It’s four decades now
since I had a cigarette—
why do I even know that now?

16.
The waitress moves from table to table,
I admire her girlish grace,
her skillful movements,
twelve tables to take care of
all by herself. She seems unfazed
by our requirements, anxieties,
explanations, complainings,
she smiles and brings us food–
tasty, nourishing, but less
interesting than the sight of her.

17.
Speaking of tables,
reden afm tsh,
the wood itself,
the silverware, the napery,
all distract us
when we talk at a table.
What could we discuss
more exciting than this fork,
last invention in human dining?
How can politics mean as much as that?

18.
So in the dream I was chopping
an onion peeled yesterday
to sauté en route to turning
two days ago’s creamed turkey
into something like curry now.
I sliced and chopped
and then began again,
mentally gathering from the shelf
turmeric and cumin and
what is that third thing I need?
Ginger is already in the cream.

19.
I hate dreaming
about doing things,
having things to do.
Dreams should be panoplies,
dioramas, murals wider than the sky.
Dream should be seen, not made.

20.
What’s for breakfast?
The sun in trees.

21.
No such thing as a vegan restaurant.
The sight of people eating
is a rich red meat.

22.
We read about this place
and here we are!
But are we ever where we think it is?

23.
Pick out the linguine
strand by strand
and loop each into a letter
on the tablecloth.
See, writing is always possible,
the word is always waiting,
like the waiter bringing
you back your credit card.

24.
So what’s for dessert?
Kiwi sorbet—here, lick my thumb.

24.
Leave something in the glass,
the light loves that little
jiggling movement on the surface—
it is the only place we live.

26.
It got cold outside
while we were eating—
is it our fault, food’s fault,
restaurant’s failing?
Why can’t we be
our own weather?
And it’s dark too,
what kind of place is this,
where they turn off the sky?

1 October 2021