Rocking Chair

The creak when it receives
My weight—maple’s just
Music, after all—recalls
What might have been
The motion and the sound
In Grandfather’s time,
Not here, but a thousand
Miles at sea: soundless
But for this, the creak
And the undulating,
Borne on a southeast wind,
The rhythm of seafaring then.
Each is an inheritance,
And equally mysterious:
I don’t know where or when
The maple was cut, nor
What was passing through
His head when he posed,
Stiff, uniformed and stern,
For the framed photograph
Fading atop the glass-fronted
Bookcase that houses
Encyclopedias 40 years old.
It wasn’t his. It came
From Massachusetts, I think,
Somehow reached the west coast,
And sat unoccupied,
Occasionally dusted,
Under the front-room mirror,
Eventually migrating
To the back of the house.
Day’s getting underway,
High summer in California:
This gray rhythm mocks
Another, as the coffee
Steams, the fan blows
Ocean air from the window,
And the brief tomatoes
Ripen behind the toolshed.
Legs crossed, I watch the toe
Of my moccasin pulse.
A sip, a creak. I’ll be
50 next year, and down
The street, where in an hour
Or so, the day’s first hip-hop
Car will come boom-booming
along, Jean is still asleep,
Jean, who, pushing 90,
Still keeps that corner
As neat and flower-tended
As when Grandmother’s rose,
Visible from the window,
Was planted some lost summer.
The pattern in the maple
Shapes a symmetry. So
Mirror-images tend to
Run, like music, from
The first note to the working-
Out, logical, one would hope,
Ultimately, making some kind
Of sense. Three or four more
Creaks, more rocks, a pause.
The pendulum doesn’t give you
That kind of break. And it’s
An illusion of course:
The marine layer brightens
And the tomatoes ripen
Despite this fermata,
And what the rhythm
Of the wood implies,
Creaks more quietly,
For that reason’s more
Insistent, as the fog starts
To lift, a weed-whacker
Guns across the street,
And blocks away, the wailing
Of Saturday’s first ambulance
Fades in, forcing me to close
The book on my lap
Until the noise subsides.

August, 2004