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This New Never
This new never is quiet enough to fill a hundred caves with monks. The wind rushes up from our pasture, bends the pines and brings no news. I whisper your name and look at your picture on the desk, the one where you smile like the Little Flower of Lisieux, willing your pain into someone else’s joy, if only you could decode the mysterious how. where I can’t call you Sunday afternoons to talk about your last college course, on silence, a subject we both longed to comprehend and entered in awkward minutes when we didn’t know what to say from the desert inside, each of us craving the sound of wind across the mouths of caves. my vow. You say, in my head, don’t be stupid, and I want to retort, the way you were, but don’t because you hurt enough, your eyes tired of looking for I’ll-never-know- what but perhaps a visit with one of your obscure poets who helped you think yourself to that beach in Mexico where you sat alone with the black dog watching the surf. your little girl self leaning out from behind the black oak in our front yard, you in your pink and yellow dress playing peekaboo with me. I listen to the sky. In the quiet you speak: I’m not there, buddy. No dice. But I’m OK. |
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Before taking up writing full-time, J. Stephen Rhodes served as the academic dean of Memphis Theological Seminary and as a Presbyterian pastor. His poetry has appeared in Shenandoah, Tar River Poetry, The William and Mary Review, and The International Poetry Review. He is currently working on a book dealing with the relationship between service and self-care and is seeking publication of his first book of poetry. He lives with his wife, Ann, on a farm in south central Kentucky. |
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Date of Publication: 01 May 2008 |
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