Compare and contrast, went the instructions
In so many ancient high school and college
Exams, not a few of which I gave myself,
Although I tried to avoid the exact phrase,
As if humans needed to be told to behave
Like humans. Might as well give a worm
An exam that instructs it to eat dirt. The trick
Was always in the speed, efficiency, detail,
And creativity of the instinctive act, not
In the instinctive act itself. We only need
Two named clumps of phenomena shoved
Cheek by jowl or yoked by a common word,
Suggested metaphor, trait, or a similar date
For idle memory to immediately begin
Masticating the comparison. Paddy’s Day,
A light snow falling over a grey Salt Lake,
Nothing like St Patrick’s Day, say, eleven
Years ago, when I, as a body ancestral
To this one still using the same name, rose
In the front guest room of two friends’ home
In Albuquerque, packed in the sun, drove
Through reservations to Moab. That man
Was forty-four, thin, childless, had just filed
For divorce from a lovely, alcoholic wife,
Was a tenured full professor of Behavioral
Sciences and Anthropology, had spent
The previous spring break week driving
Alone through Utah and New Mexico,
Holing up for days in Los Alamos, wandering
The cavate remains of Tsankawi, alternately
Blissed out and feeling full of self pity.
Arriving in Moab that St. Patrick’s Saturday,
That man, who was reasonably well off,
Ate pasta at a tourist spot on the main drag
Calm under the few stars cutting through
Then read a history of local uranium mining
Back the hotel. Then to bed, having noticed
An ad for the Moab Music Fest a few months
Later in September and made a mental note,
Not a clue how much of the next decade,
Including the conception of his only child
Would follow from that stop in Moab,
That pleasant evening at the cafe, that note.
And this man? Body lowers into a chair,
Heavily, watching daughter and cousin play
In the falling snow, considering the many
Deaths and changes contained within
The frame defined by the name, St. Patrick’s.
No comments:
Post a Comment