this tearless father

i did not weep
when you crowned
in the canal

i watched
the
violence to

your mother's
pink and
pliant flesh

and witnessed blood
and the pale
effusive waters

i gave love
to your mother
lying on her back

held her hand
and wiped her brow
and watched her shake

but i was not
one of those
fathers who wept

i saw majesty
in your birth;
an alien grandeur

the expulsion
of your flesh from
her flesh

made my soul
yaw and pitch;
tumble and vibrate

the intellect
penetrated the
physical

when you with your head
slid out of her
greased to the heels

i elated quietly
at the coming
of you

my mind and
my heart
together seized

a breathless
moment at your
first breathtaking

but i was not
one of the
fathers who wept

i used to wonder
in the first years
where i became broken

to not emote
to not exerience the
swell and release

that i hear
so many other
fathers have

did i not
witness a miracle
as big?

did i not love
you as much as they
did theirs?

do i not
have the same
heart and soul?

i've cried since
for you
that's for sure

at the moment
i learned you'd
been nearly killed

at the moment
i learned i
could not stop your crying

at the moment
i felt you thought
i didn't care

at the moment
you learned
i was fallible

at the moment
i was sure
you'd be taken

so forth
and so on
i weep now

a father
who felt
something

close to seeing
the beginning of
time

when you
were born
and blood covered

but did not
weep at
it for fear

i would miss
the moment of
you becoming you

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the baby in the lap of the poet

see this child
climbing into my
lap this morning
just when the
muse flew in
on her wing

one an angel
in blond pigtails
and a runny nose
the other
a capricious
sprite

i'd grabbed
my pen and pad
just then
feeling the
flutter of
wing

when the child
- guided by her
own covert specter -
crossed the room
and placed a hand
on my knee

the pen falls to
child and to home
to wife, to pet
to lovemaking
to sleep
to prayer

some poets
-most all-
dogged by the
same passions,
pursued by the
same demons

are capable
of closing a
door to all
else and
cupping
the muse

till she is
properly
pinned
and the poet
is briefly
satiated

and would
find my
deference
to the baby
a weakness
of a man

uncommitted
to his art
the highest
calling of all
they would say
i was a traitor

but the baby
in my lap
whose hands
have soiled
my pant legs
with chocolate

and whose
theft of a pen
made errant marks
in my journal
one day
while i was away

and whose
nose drips
down into her
mouth as
she tries
new words

will not be
on my knee
in another day
perhaps three
this poet
knows not

and the foundations
of my kingdom
will collapse
under the weight
of time
and be dissolved

by the seas
of human
afflictions
and familial
passings and
all those hot winds

the baby on the
knee will
not wait
but the child muse
will wing
again

and i
will always
have words
and words
and words
and words

the baby
climbed
down and
the muse
evaporated
into the air

i write
this while she
sleeps
and the poets
sleep in
their books

and my lover
is away
and the pets
wag
and the rain
falls outside

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the time that it takes us

the time that it takes us
to unfold
beneath blankets
is the length of ages

children to bed
dogs restful and snoring
the cats in the kitchen
finally abandoning their chase

the night now is a
quiet thing
laid over us -
a coverlet of calm

we both have equal wants in
the darkness; his greater
than hers is
the old myth

passion is something
to do with
the heart and the loin
in man and woman equally

it radiates from
an ancient place:
the tendrils of that old joy
never stop seeking

this man makes
a move with a hand
to breast
and you awaken

this man's lips
find the shoulder
and the triceps and the
rib behind flesh

a delicate kissing of
curves
your head turned away
coy to my touch

the arousals are
problematic of course:
the din of the day
pressing back

the invasions of
the domestic;
the cries and the wails
of all those boorish bosses

old lovers
are not young lovers who
can find heat in any place:
in parks or a dark bar

we too were pilgrims
once in a lush green
land of hot forests
and milk white rivers

the adventure was
made in the hunt
for the jewels in
each other's pockets

we old lovers must leave
the familiar paths
we've furrowed through each other's
earthen networks

and go blindly
into thicket or thorn
if we are to find that
fresh spring

this man's hand
is holding yours
my lover's, while
the other is on an adventure

the risen flesh of the neck
the breath of the woman
the slow descent into
focus

i made love to you once
filled with a fever
in a parked car on the side of
a road

with the growl of the
passing cars and the hum of the
engine and our breathing
becoming a certain symphony

what we were
is not what we want
what we want is
to be engorged fairly

to not deny our
time in growth
or lament or call
for past days

we're no less
lovers in love today
nor are we dry leaves
in a forgotten forest

the baby stirs now
and the flow slows
to a deliberate mechanical
and then altogether stops

we hold our breath
and listen; she sputters,
whines; and the walls we've
brought down are rebuilt

you look at me and sigh
and i sigh
and we hold hands
our bodies lit and infused

somewhere, young lovers
are sinking into
the old immersion and
believing more than they know

out there across
fields and forests
in their uncomplicated
lives touching and unblocked

not aware that they
are pilgrims just once; that
elation of discovery fades and
that they must work the land to thrive

the baby snores
now, and this man's hand
finds the folds, fingers trip down
a familiar fanning alluvial

and you turn your head away

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mothers of sons

outside my window
the blossoms of a flowering tree
bob in the wind at the ends of branches
like the heads of boys in the arms
of a tired mother

the boys, these blossoms, are
restless and eager
and the mother, this tree, bends
her arms to let them wag but refuses
to release them entirely

i don't know the names of the flowers
on all those sun-laden trees
any more than I know the names of the mothers
who have held their wagging boys
on the sunny days of the years of the past

but i know one mother
who held a once-ambitious boy
to her breast on the day
he let the winds carry him
away, finally

and the falling-off
and the falling away down
was a pull on her soul
as painful as his birth was on
her womb

so i understand why
mothers and trees don't give up
their head-bobbing boys
very easily
for the double pain of it

and yet they give it
and give it all
knowing and knowing
and yet they still give it
all for their head-bobbing boys

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The girl who loved dorothy the most

i was at an event
and she called my name
from across the
tops of the heads
of a crowd

a mother
holding her
daughter the one
who's been
through hell

i don't get
called across the heads
of crowds
too much
really

and turned to
see the two
wading in a line
of shuffling
bodies

the girl is
a spray of wildflowers
in the arms of her mother
the
unbreakable vase

they know hospital walls
that you don't
and prayers to angels
have been sent up
in a swallowing darkness

did you have fun?
i ask
and she nods
and tucks her face into
her mother's neck

i don't know
the color of her eyes
but they remind me
of how i imagine
worlds beyond this universe

they have cracked
open her skull
and have left scars
it's hard not
to stare

i am in love with a woman
who also embraced a child
that makes people
stare
he is my son

not my adopted
son but
he has red hair
anyway
and he is difficult

he has not
seen hospitals
and his head remains
untouched
but he needed a champion

i've known mothers
whose birth of a child
is nothing more
than an expulsion
of an inconvenience

so forgive me if i
love this woman who
holds this girl
and shouts my name
across an auditorium

she and her wife
know you must walk
the edge of a blade
that falling to either side
is not an option

a mother
is a woman
who lives in
the bloodstream
of her children forever

this is not
a song of pity
God favors no
one and loves
the lowly all the same

but something ought
be said about
the women who
live in the
shadow of the sun

and defend
the stared-at children
with the sword of Athena
lest they be slain
by wolves of apathy

it gives them
what the others have:
the right to find
beauty and joy
in anything

who is your favorite?
i ask the child
and she whispers
and she whispers
dorothy

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April 10th

my father took
me, a suspicious son
toward the casket
where his own
father lie

it was 1979
i wore a K-Mart suit jacket
and a clip-on tie
and my father had to
tamp down my cowlick with spit-in-palm

my father celebrates 

his birthday on april 10th

even though he

discovered late in life

that his birth certificate says the 9th

my grandmother ina

having celebrated it a day late 

for reasons known only to her:

dad thinks she was confused

by the late hour of his birth

to an 11-year-old
who just got
his first 10-speed for
his birthday
i feared all evil

the funeral home
hummed with the
low mourn of
clingy
ghosts

he - my father - placed
his hand between my shoulder
blades and urged me forward
toward the casket
at the end of a long bright room

my father kissed me

on the lips all the time

and once in front of peers

after being dropped off at 

school and they called me fag

i have kissed my own sons'

lips to suck

from them the poison

of men inebriated

by their own ignorance

that's where it is
he said to me. I
was eye-level with
my grandfather
in his own suit jacket and tie

he rested there
his thin hair perfected
needing no tamping down
although i sensed my
father wanted to anyway

his pacemaker
my father explained
i said nothing but he heard
the question in my mind
it kept his heart beating

he wept, my father,

at my brother's death bed

when he said 

now i know what

god felt like when he lost his son

my brother who

could be given nothing

to keep his heart going

the victim of a 

riot of brain cells

my father took my hand
in his own
swallowing it whole
and together we patted
his fallen father's cold chest

tap
his hand was hot
tap
his hand was shaking
tap

i refused
to ride my new 10-speed
for weeks after
i remember not
wanting to leave his presence

in my silly child's way
i inferred from our
shared moment at the funeral
home that he needed my small
hand between his and his father's chest

as if my hand
acting as an insulator
protected my father
from something
sinister

and now
to put distance between us
would betray
the trust we'd cultivated
in that bright, gloomy place

a father to a child
is a connection made of
a thousand different
flowing gold strands
woven and made taut by time

we go tomorrow

to celebrate  his birthday

it being april 10th

and we'll have cake

and ice cream 

i love that he waits a day later 

than he should 

a foggy mistake by his mother has meant 

i have been afforded a day longer than what some men

have enjoyed with their own fathers

i have wondered
if my grandfather kissed my father
on the lips
or held my father's hand
passionately

i celebrate
my father's maker
the highest giver
be praised for gifting me
a lovely giver

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to the three girls waiting in line

i.

the girl waiting in line
turned and kicked the
boy behind her
squarely in the crotch
and he fell
to his knees like a melon
dropped from a roof

the principal
was summoned from his
office and he stood, square-jawed
over the fallen
who wailed
and rocked with
his knees to his chest

we all gathered
in a circle
around them
the girl
with her arms crossed
looked down on the boy
and the principal did too

as if the boy
was a hot coal
that had been
spit from a fire
onto the cold
pavement of the
playground

balls
i heard whispered
kicked in the balls
my peers said
some tittered
others gasped
we all clamored

the principal
as if having
had to take some time
to measure up the
scene finally spoke
to the girl and
we all became quiet jurors

why?
he asked
and she kept her arms
crossed and
stared at the boy
she had waylaid
who now whimpered

he wouldn't leave me alone
she said
so you kicked him?
she didn't look
at the principal
but rather at
us

and we looked back at
her this girl
who shared classes
with us and hallways
and lunches who'd become
a kicker of balls
the new unrighteous

why?
our principal asked
his hair was thin
and waved in an
april breeze
he looked
like a clown

he snapped my bra
the girl spat
and then cried
her hands to
her face
shoulders jumping
i looked at her chest

we all did
and we recalled
she was the girl
who got those before
all other girls
and she was
taller too

i have a crush
on her now
that i thought of it
as we stood there looking
at her crying
all the girls were taller
than me in fact

the school nurse came to collect
the mewling boy
and helped him
back into the school
holding his balls
bent over like one of those
war veterans at the Memorial Day Parade

no one snapped
her bra after
that we all let her
be and in time
my crush waned
and the girl waiting in
line faded away

ii.

a mother in a cafe
sat across the room from
me and stared out
the window
toward some
kind
of history

her face
drawn by a
caricaturist at
a county fair
on this sepiatic
day
in april

i want to
see that history
i think to myself
it would be
a telling story
jagged as the Maine seacoast
blue-gray as sandstone

she is wearing
a long-sleeved
shirt with a buttoned
collar
and a pair of dress pants
and dress shoes
with two children

who dresses like this?
i ask my palms
with two toddlers in tow?
looking out a cafe
window
at a disappointment while
the kids eat blueberry muffins

she has been
told something that
wasn't ever true or didn't come true
or felt true but she knew
was a lie in her heart
out that window are
the words that haunt her

she wanted to finish
college maybe but cannot
or she is friends with a man that
her husband doesn't like
or she longs to
be the lead in a play
that will never be staged

one of the children
the blond boy rests a hand on her slacks
leaving an oily print
that only i notice
the button to her blouse
at the breasts has popped open
and i look away

iii.

a friend confided
recently that she
is the target of
a swarm of
jackals
wearing the smiles
of church-goers

she is ripe
for the picking
of course
don't let that brilliant
countenance
throw you off the
scent of blood

a girl's heart is a bell of
horsehair crinoline
bracing a skirt
of public considerations:
mother, daughter, wife
friend
lover

undress her
and she burns

her soul is the core of
a distant sun kept contained
by the mass of her own passions
she is really just another star
until she gets close to you
then she becomes your source of
heat

my friend
the one encircled
dabs feeble unguent on
the bleeding sores left
by the teeth
of the vicious
familiar

they tear at
her to get beneath
the ribs of the underskirt
taunting the source of their heat
not realizing that
her warmth will be stilled
when pushed far enough away

iv.

to the three girls
waiting in line
yours is a
story about
falling
leaves
in a forest

painted hands
at the ends of
maple branches
slip away
and down
to a wet path

to some it is
the floating down
and the impact of
the fall, and the
brief brilliance
of your autumnal
change

to me
it is
your waiting
that makes you
strongest
on the branch
a canopy, a source

the descent
will come to
us all
but those who wait
and endure
are most
beloved

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The Community, The Family

Me, directing Oz while comforting Toto

In 1999, my two oldest children were 7 and 5 and would accompany me to the grand Fuller Hall auditorium at St. Johnsbury Academy for rehearsals.

We were staging Into the Woods, Stephen Sondheim's musical that stitches several fairy tales into a fabulously dark tapestry about princes and princesses and witches and dead cows and beanstalks. It's a celebrated and musically unyielding show that drives musicians and directors crazy for its level of difficulty. I loved being a part of it, for many reasons.

I had, just a couple years before, tried my hand at acting for the first time in "The Rainmaker" and was instantly thrust into a rare fraternity called community theater. I fell in love. With not just acting, but with everything to do with it. It was a clan, with its own language and its own set of rules and its own hierarchy of leadership and its own local history and its own grand universal mythology.

It was where one could go, no matter his role in real life, and feel as if he had an equal footing no matter his role in the production. The banker and the housewife became light designers and stage managers; the teenager and the retired chef became set builders and sound engineers; the politician and the newspaperman became actors and producers. It allowed us the chance to become absorbed, naked of our day skins, into this warm light like unabashed children bathing together.

To be truthful, the biggest benefit for me is how theater revealed the folly of my fears. You've heard this story before. You've seen the movie. Perhaps, even, you have experienced it. Growing up, I was the kid in the shadowy corner. My self esteem stunted by the ridicule of peers for being short. A bullying that turned me inward and kept me gripped in the fist of palpable fear. Over the years, I have looked at my youth and seen it as a blessing in disguise. By being shuffled aside and forgotten, I was forced to play inside the mind which allowed me to exorcise demons onto the page and find my voice as a writer. A writer is a solitary person. He wields his tools alone. There is no need for peers to be happy and successful.

It wasn't until I was 30, however, and acted a part in a play that I discovered there was a tribe I belonged to. And from that point on, I've seen my courage grow; I have shrugged off my disdain of speaking in public; I have blown up the old anxieties that come with fearing failure.

Theater, for the most part, is the only experience I have had in which no matter how tired or frustrated I felt about a particular aspect of it, I always thirsted for it. I always looked forward to going to rehearsal. I always had withdrawals when it was over. I have laughed and shouted and cried on stage with people I've only known for months, and most of whom I still call my friends today. I can't think of a single experience that I can say that about.

Except family. Community theater, when it's working right, has the convivial spirit and community-as-family bonding of a Shaker barn-raising.

Speaking of family. I can think of no other activity than community theater in which real families can do something together. I learned this during that 1999 production of Into the Woods.

Fallon and Harrison, as I said, would come to rehearsals and sit in the auditorium and watch. They weren't there to be babysat. They came willingly and I loved them to be there. They were adopted by the cast. They were adored by the crew. They got a first-row seat to the making of a musical, and they had a million and one questions that I was thrilled to answer. I felt, more than at any time, like I was their hero.

Since then, they've seen nearly every show I've been in or directed. And while they don't participate in theater directly, I believe their exposure to it has in some small way opened them up to a broader sense of community and the arts and life. Something I did not have until I was 30. And their presence taught me that from then on, my family's involvement with me was as important to me as my own involvement.

Today, I sit here writing this just hours before The Wizard of Oz  hits the stage at our local community theater.  A show I directed. In it, my wife Corrine and two of our youngest children will perform along side a cast of 70 others and supported by a crew of nearly 30. Folks who are acting for the first time. Folks who are acting with their son or daughter. Folks who have dedicated their work to the memory of someone who died. Folks who do it for their own reasons, all of which really is about being involved in something that makes them feel included. Accepted. Important.

That's 100 people of every damn walk of life.

People I now love and who I can add to my growing family.

One that started in a musty town hall in Lyndonville, Vermont when a group of oddly different people asked me to join their family.

And in so doing, slayed the dragon of my youth.

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