|
| Saturday before Easter,
Six dozen eggs boiled;
Pastels and newspaper,
Wire hangers twisted,
Around the kitchen table
Vinegar dye completed.
Mary Poppins and London’s grey horizon—
There’s the bird lady behind Father’s old bank,
Steps ‘round St. Paul’s Cathedral, smoky dawn.
Merton knows, Tell me, darlings, can God be in hell?
No one sees clearly before resurrection.
Saturday before Easter,
Fingers stained Chartreuse,
Hold my hand, dear lover
(Ubi amor Deus
Ibi est). Even’ vigil
Gladly we’ve found a truce.
Holy Saturday
2007
Please see Selected Poems of Thomas Merton. New York: New Directions, 1967.
| | |
| Three cathedrals in time
And space. Paschal mysteries about me
Incense clouds and languages I know not.
Night falls and I feel the draft,
(La Iglesias of downtown, each its own spirit)
The gold line station isn’t too far.
One, a fortress; the other, sold, as a theater;
Third, a sanctuary, running out, fading and floating
Until the angels return to the streets.
Via Crucis this afternoon
Three trees block our view
The great cloud of witnesses. We
Walk by city hall and look upon the wall--
A mural with Jesus being taken down.
Mary watches even now, in mosaic.
14 stations viewed from the 13th floor,
My co-workers on the roof are watching us walk;
Tents and sleepers let me pass.
Words face the gently sloping hills of assigned unexpected friendship.
The saints call out through the bright lights and shuffling steps.
The Sabbath begins on the train ride home.
Good Friday
2007
| | |
| hanging out on the roof (thirteenth floor)
on my 15 minute afternoon break
8:10 AM arrived on the elevator
heading to the 11th floor
it shook and dropped down started
up again, again dropped
and stopped
refused to move
I pressed the open door, close door
stop and emergency button
I pressed the "in case of emergency push to talk"
a speaker sounded out
that dull dial tone
and I waited to hear the voice on the other end
as the machine connected I heard the line ring
ring only once
you have reached a number that has been disconnected or is no longer in service.
please hang up and try again.
I stared at the smooth metal panel with the single button
impossible to hang up or try again
I turned to admire the grafitti scratched
on the walls of my room
I'm here in elevator no. 3
and its stuck between floors
and the doors won't open.
file the complaint with the building manager
we're standing there on the roof,
their smokes in hand
bureaucrat badges on lanyards
watching a helicopter hover
over city hall as superheroes
and extras run around a fictional disaster
| | |
| Both yesterday and today as I was walking up the steps to my bureaucrat's office, crossing the modern patio before going in the side doors, I looked up to the sky and watched a low-flying jetlinerz carry its passengers directly over my building in downtown L.A. Probably bound for a place I'd like to visit. It is unnerving to see the exact same type of plane in the exact same place at the exact same time, two days in a row. like being struck by lightning twice, or groundhog day with Bill Murray.
While I was talking with my boss in a meeting about hate crime victims, four helicopters, in formation, flew across the large panoramic window in his office. We're on the crest of a hill, on the 11th floor, so they were just about eye level.
There's a subway stop behind my office--civic center station on the red line if you want to visit--on the platform it has audio of birds chirping in a way that gives the illusion of flight. When you look up to see the birds, instead there are 5 or 6 mannequins, stretched out in human flight, shoeless in jeans and colorful t-shirts. It is some permanent art exhibit for the Los Angeles transportation authority.
Anyway, because of the aforementioned hill, and maybe the fault divided earth, the subway platform is rather deep beneath the surface streets. The stop has the largest escalator I have ever seen, easily six stories straight down into the ground. I didn't want to miss the 5:37 train that could hear, breaks screeching, underground wind blowing, into the civic center stop, so I ran down the escalator, across the mezzanine, down the other escalator (this time a standard single story) and threw my arms and bag between the closing door of the subway. And the doors slammed closed on my arms; shuddered and opened again allowing me to enter. An old man with a shabby suit jacket standing right in front of me said "you're lucky" and the rest of the crowded subway welcomed me with amused smiles.
As I was standing on the open air platform waiting for the 5:50 express gold line train home at Union Station, The Goodyear Blimp drifted across my horizon. The train was already in the station, and all the passengers were qeued up to board. One by one, heads began to turn, to follow the notorious blimp with its large flashing sign and two smaller airplanes circling round about like angels. As I and my fellow passengers looked up at the blimp, the train departed empty, with no one inside. The doors had never opened.
| | |
| I make regular visits to obscure LAPD
offices.
Last month, I took the bus to the 77th street station
in South Central for a meeting about community response to racially
motivated gang violence. In the midst of "hard core gang
prosecutors" and station chiefs discussing violence between
Blacks and Latinos in Los Angeles, the ghetto bird came home to
roost. The shadows spinning across the windows, the noise of the
rotors interrupted angry platitudes about eliminating every gang
member in Los Angeles. Needless to say, I felt out of place.
Today
was a little more mundane. 13 blocks south on Broadway, I arranged to
meet a LAPD Detective and pick up a bundle of police reports coded as
hate crimes. I wore my county badge, suit jacket and tried to look
respectable as I entered the 5th floor major crimes detective unit. I
felt like I was in limbo on the other side of the T.V. screen, in
some prime-time crime drama. Anyway, I picked up the reports from the
detective. It was a bright and multi-cultural feeling office, with a
nice view.
I skimmed through a few of the crimes--it is a
shocking thing to read of violence in the technical, straightforward,
simple words of a police report. Suspects and victims.
So that's what the taxpayers have me
doing. Since federal taxes fund 1/4 of the county budget, I think
most of you are technically paying my salary. I'm trying to keep you
updated.
| | |
|
