Brad Haas
Setting Stones
...When your children shall
ask their fathers in time to
come, saying, What mean
these stones
Then ye shall let your
children know...
Joshua 4:21-22
EXODUS
At the toll plaza, Washingtons
unfolded, fanned and counted:
twelve dollars.
May these be
fruitful and multiply
and not run into trouble
as their numerical brethren,
the Tribes
Two left behind.
Ten others cross to
another land
clothed in Levi's
priestly blue garb
Ducks dabble
in shoal water,
egrets stand in shallows
of shoreline rip-rap
A casual crane dives
for an iconoclast
supper
The height
resonates
in girders,
in tension-wires,
cross-beams
in shadows
Below, boats -
sails and smokestacks
span beyond sight,
assimilate into sunset
Headlights illumine
twinned signs on
intermittent posts
that read:
|
and seem to answer the questions:
'How are you doing?'
and
'What are your chances?'
This thing straddles
the gap
between shores, runs
in air, walks
on water with
concrete trunks, stands
by welder's arc -
an alliance of elements
conveys convoys across
a sea
of ruby ripples -
Is there no sound
of chariots? need
for a shepherd's staff?
Who beats a tambourine,
dances or
sings Hosannas?
SETTING STONES
After education has ended,
beyond some remoter horizon
are found
unset stones
shaped to show,
not to set
but on their own
set to show
each facet's light,
what can be shown.
NAAMAN AT THE WATERING HOLE
From Syria to foreign land and Spirit.
Forebear of faith and Bethesda,
egged to excess at water's edge
six times. Some gawk.
Others would jump in and drown themselves.
Naaman must separate from these -
life in the village advances disease.
In congress on the bank
the chorus queries:
Is the water sacred,
is the water pure?
Can the water heal,
can the water cure?
Yes, so saith the prophet Elisha.
Naaman
tho gentile
descends
again
rubs water on leprous shins and thighs,
then turns on these same shanks
to the light of spotted scrutiny.
SMALL FISH
Small fish, you say
re: breaching
propriety and prudish
heritage.
You stir the bowl's water to
a flurry of fins and tales -
small fish swirl in sinking circles.
See, you say,
they're sucked under,
yet surface again.
Plucked out one sits in hand,
its slick skin cool,
flecked, metallic
shingles tacked
in sheets
over pale organs.
It struggles for air.
An impulse passes
to flush it in the toilet.
I see, I say,
small fish
swim
on cars, in catacombs.
TRINITIES
Chromed emblem, trident
circumscribed, of Germanic descent,
perched on grilled precipice
over waving lanes
offers
a blessing
of Mercy,
that of seas.
* * *
Through the windshield nothing,
nothing in the rear-view mirror
save two infinitely spotted white lines
delineating the Asphalt Trinity,
the Three Lanes in One,
the Faster
Slow
and Hardly Go
Amen.
* * *
Cloverleaf, Patrick's lesson,
seen clearly from above,
felt here below as conflicting
centripetal and centrifugal forces:
watchhands seem to stand still.
As sojourn corrects bearing by
trefoiled compass, needle points
along fanning veins of a geometer's
protracted vision:
the knot tied exerts stricture,
NEWS secretes from concrete botany:
gas gauge reads E, sign of spent fuel,
or oracle, that each impetus must
end at its origin, despite maneuvers
à la Jonah.
INTERLUDE
Funny, when the machine stops
those riding stop with it.
The car slows as it
rolls to the shoulder.
There has been no accident
save the varia that informs us,
no tragedy but the everyday -
the engine is given over,
has run to its limit -
must we lie with it?
This was my vehicle, a white whale,
this my fish in whose belly I sat,
that spewed me on the roadside -
its metal bulk seemed
to imbibe flesh with life;
the hulk now exudes
a stench of
solitude.
I miss the small green roads,
foliage framing the pavement,
wood & wire fences, wildflowers.
That I were on such a road now,
left by a field full of fall corn...
Can we excuse this interlude
of 'telling'? Say
'It is all in the showing'
and it rings hollow:
macadam covered with gravel,
thrown treads, glass shards,
the day's road meat next to past's,
a paper clip, a Heineken cap -
slim materia
for a new order, but
It is as I see it,
means as I shape
- who knows,
by another's design?
a sell-out?
Some say surrender,
others Will. Whatever
the case,
'First there is the need;
then, the way,
the name, the formula.'
There is need
for love
like a valentine,
an appraisal of accidents.
GRACE ON SUNDAY
14.ii.99
Grace untarnished, in gold:
a memorable fancy.
Yet I may remember more
mundane meals and manners,
Thursday afternoons,
and find Grace
in styrofoam,
Grace in all things.