The Why of It

To see the world
from within it,
above and below,
inhabiting each
and all of its beings,
not self-effaced
but self-expanded,

to sort significance
from noise and boredom,
to put aside all pain
for the sake of a thing
made only of words —

this is the calling.

Sunset Rhapsody

by Brett Rutherford 

Eye-blinks,
brush-strokes,
things no sooner seen
than forgotten

unless
the words come,
or the brush speeds past
the drying of water
hastily, hastily
before it is gone —

Red light above,
black water below
horizon-sky.
Foreground of forest
some parts still lit,
some parts in silhouette —

Ravens on high,
arrowing about,
while in the hedge
one whippoorwill
stands still —

Gale-swept corn
tilts eastward,
sharp eyes peek red
in shrubbery
and under fallen
oak branches,
trees’ loss
their newfound
mansion —

The high grass moves.
The hare hides.
Snake closes
all-knowing eyes —

In twilit pines,
something is about,
hungry for flesh —
foxes bring down
a limping doe —

Bats swoop to scoop
the almost invisible
midge and gnat,
summer’s last harvest —

The spider laments
the coming snow,
web never big enough
to catch and keep
a full larder —

Moss, lichen,
mushroom, fern,
sleep, or die!
Rock shelter,
south-facing trunk,
warm rills
of water melting:
they will get by —

Maples, if you
could only hear them,
chatter with leaf and root:
“Frost coming!
Oh, what’s the use?”

St. John's Eve

 by Brett Rutherford

Gather the spores of ferns
on St. John’s Eve,
when fireflies
and will o’ wisps
are wont to flicker.

Sprinkle the brown dust of them
about your cap and cloak,
and you may dance
with the elves and fairies
invisible, and 
unmolested; reach

into the cache
of buried treasure
and bring up gold,

or even, if such
is your desire, stand
at any crossroad
and converse
with suicides.

Last, walk home
slowly and silently,
lest you alarm the hens
or rouse a dog’s
suspicions.

Fern seed shaken
from off your garb,
greet then the dawn
with a secret smile.

The Fingers

by Brett Rutherford

I watched an old man
confront an unfamiliar
soup. The color off,
the scent of spice
was not a familiar one,
the broth of what animal
boiled from bone, who knew?

When no one looked, he
tentatively touched
the not-quite-steaming
surface with finger three,
left hand, known since
the Middle Ages
as the line to the heart,
able to test for poison
or spoiled meat; one dab,
and the inner voice
said yea or nay.
Rings we put here
for safe-keeping,
silver and gold
in the Sun’s keeping.

The finger first
we use to point
was once the archer’s
best friend, bow-
pulling scite-finger.
Now we merely indicate
with it, imperative,
finger of Jove.

Of the long finger,
the impudent one,
the less said, the better.
Unsleeping Saturn
in Tartarus rules it,
and disconnected ones
are sometimes seen
scaling a trellis
to annoy some virgin.

Almost forgotten,
the little digit, is said,
if raised, to fortell
bad weather, but more
than not, it serves
to clean the ear of wax.

As for the thumb,
unruly, brute, and
lascivious, wise men
and alchemists assign
it to the rule of Venus.

Fingers fine and agile:
if they play Bach, and type
without your looking,
who knows what they do
while you are sleeping,

or even if the ones
you wake with are the ones
you went to bed with
the night before?

 

The Consultation

by Brett Rutherford

Miss Schreckengost,
the principal, my parents,
and my small self
stand in the third grade
classroom. What trouble
am I in this time? Did
the comics I draw
and circulate among
the tittering students
offend someone?

“We called you here,”
the principal says,
bass voice held down
to an unfamiliar whisper,
“to talk about your son.
He's too young to take
an IQ test, but he,
I assure you, is way
beyond our teaching.

“He could skip two grades,”
Miss Schreckengost says.

“Or even three,”
the principal asserts.
“He really belongs
in a private school,
a place for young geniuses.”

My parents say nothing.
Then “Private school ...
you have to pay for that.”

“Yes. But for the best.
We don't know what
to do for him, except
to let him roam the stacks
of the town library
and read what he wants.
Do you have books at home?”

“Not really.”

Sliding to save the day,
the principal back-tracks.
“Well, it is said
that jumping ahead
can interfere
with any child's normal
development.”

“Oh, we wouldn't want
that. He should be normal.
Normal is best, isn't it?”

“Very well, then,”
the principal sighs.
“But while you're here
there's one more thing.
We had to move your son
to the third row, right here,
since he can no longer see
the blackboard. Glasses,
eyeglasses he needs.
You must attend to this,
and right away.”

Another silence.
My father assents and asks
the name of an eye doctor.
My mother just says,
“Glasses. My god,
he has to wear glasses.
Going around
with glasses.
I'm so ashamed.”

I stood,
the object talked about
praised and condemned
in short order.

No one asked me
what I thought
or what I wanted.

As we walked home,
beneath my breath, I said —
“The slings and arrows
of outrageous fortune.”

Autumn in Alexandria

by Brett Rutherford

There is one who waits for me,
sheltered from wind and wave
behind a Corinthian column.
The priests have gone,
the lamps have died:
all fled the thunderstorm in fear.
Across the way, librarians
have shuttered knowledge up
against the idiot howling
of intemperate weather.
Every dog is in a ditch
while untethered cats
cling to the upper limbs
of the pliant willows.
Nobody has any business
out of doors; nobody,
that is, except the one who waits.

I watch, snug and safe,
from my high window.
He seems to have lashed himself
to that pillar of solid stone.
Marble will not bend or sway,
and in its leeward shade
his cloak hangs limp; he leans
as though he had nothing to do
but to await my arrival.
(I dare not go. Bruises and breaks
at my age are dangerous.)

Storm without name,
three hours now
the rain has been horizontal,
the roar of wind a long,
monotonous engine.
I, who am of tempests
tossed often enough,
feel a kinship with thunder
and its maker. One thing
alone I ask of you:

Lift up that column,
that patient loiterer,
and the stone he stands upon,
into some calm place
above the cloudy rage.
In stillness keep him safe
until your blow and bluster
recede to nothing,
until the floods flood back
and storm drains regain
their proper direction,
until the cats regain
their dry-fur dignity
and the dogs resume
whatever it is
dogs do of a sunny day.

Two eyes regard me
from out the thunder-head.
“You are a fool,”
the demon says.
“What makes you think
you are the one he braves
the elements to see?

Did your poems win
his favor?
Does he pass your books out
to one and all,
call you his friend and mentor,
implying more
to those who mark the pause,
and the sigh,
each time the syllables
of your exalted name
depart his lips?”

“Of this one I am sure,”
I protest. “Spare him!” —

“Shelter he took,”
the sly one assures me,
“just where he knew
you would see,
and be tormented so.

“On other nights he lurks
on the unlit stairway
behind the library,
not for you — fool! —
but for the first who comes
and extends a hand.” —

“No, he is noble. Poets
he loves above all!” —

“Two moons ago he let himself
go home with some astrologer,
and then a geometer who said
he had the most appealing angles,
and then with a captain just back
from Rome with Rhenish wine.” —

“I’ll not hear this! Gossip vile!” —

“Most of your scholar-rivals
frequent that place at night,
and most have noticed him,
and he, them. He uses your name
to make acquaintance, you know.

“Now, look, Callimachus,
there comes Lysander,
leaning against the gale
and making his way
to the sheltered columns.”

“Lysander! The worst
of the worst! A greeting-card
scribbler of maudlin verse!” —

“Look! He has reached your friend.
They converse.
A hand is extended.
A hand is taken.
One cloak covers two.
They drop out of sight.” —

“Ah, well,” the demon jeers.
“Any poet in a storm.”

Equinox, An Autumn Poem

by Brett Rutherford

The whole planet lights up.

It has a smoke.

It doesn't care

if it dies, lives

for the moment.

Peat, lumber, coal,

fracked gas and petrol,

dead leaves

and human ash

inhale and ex —

drill, baby

coughing its

sputter clouds,

smoke rings

to its last gasp,

melt-stained

with receding

glaciers, pimpled

with eruptions

of nickel-dime

volcanos;

killing its pets,

and setting fire

to its parent forests,

it is an addict,

indifferent;

its breath reeks,

the doom of carbon

exhuming itself

from the fossil record.

Is this what happens

on every Blue Planet?

Preface to "Emperor Li Yu, A Life in Poems"

by Brett Rutherford

TO THE READER

After almost two hundred years of glory and accomplishments, the great Tang Dynasty of China collapsed in 907 CE. The culture of Tang lingered on in the Southern Tang kingdom, however, ruled by three generations of the Li family. In Southern Tang, the grand traditions of art, music, poetry, and painting thrived, and Buddhism flourished.

Li Yu, the last ruler of Southern Tang, did not inherit his father’s military inclinations, and when he assumed the throne at a young age, the realm was shrinking as provinces were ripped away by rival states, the most rapacious of which was the new Song dynasty. Tributes, gifts, and hostages made the tension between Song and Southern Tang more and more fraught with peril.

A poet, dreamer, and pacifist, Li Yu was totally unsuited to rule in a time during which China was being split into “Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms.” Isolated in his palace compound, he devoted himself to writing poetry, and enjoyed not only the favors of his Empress and concubines, but also entered into a scandalous love affair with his wife’s younger sister.

Li Yu invited poets and artists from all the war-torn states to Southern Tang, where he housed them as honored guests in their own palace of the arts. More and more Buddhist temples and monasteries dotted the landscape.

The poem cycle, Emperor Li Yu, A Life in Poems, relates the tragic fate of Li Yu, his Empress, and the “other woman,” the kind of royal soap opera that fascinates because the outcome is the end of an entire nation. Only 39 poems of Li Yu survive, and every word of them has been woven into this narrative cycle. They are regarded as among the saddest and most emotional poems written in China, and they are sad because this poet, who had everything a mortal could wish for, lost everything.

Captured by the Song armies after the siege of Nanjing, Li Yu became a state prisoner, shown off and ridiculed as a former king and would-be emperor. When his new poems offended the Song Emperor, he was ordered to drink poison.

 

Under Every Bed

by Brett Rutherford

In high school years

my slave duty each night

was washing dishes.

An AM radio my only

companion, I sang

along with Beethoven.

When the plug was pulled

because Westerns prevailed

in the TV room, I sang

anyway, inventing whole

symphonies as I went.

An open window

above the steaming sink

sent my voice out,

where a thin man

full camouflaged

and ready to battle

the Communister

Atheist hordes, leaned

to listen. That year,

I fueled his worst

fantasies. First off,

I taught myself

Cyrllic and bellowed

out Russian folk-songs.

Volga Boatmen for you,

and for John Birch, too!

Kalinka, Kalinka,

and Stenka for good measure.

This drove him mad,

so that he sent his sons

to lurk beneath

my bedroom window,

listening to hear

my secret broadcasts

to Leningrad.

Comrade Krushchev,

coordinates here

for the Nike missile site,

just as you asked.

On Friday nights,

the radio was back

in my control.

The Pittsburgh station

marked shabbos

with cantor songs.

"And now,

cantor Richard Tucker

sings ..." and I,

as best I could,

in my best tenor

sang with him.

Out the window

went my mangled

mock-Hebrew,

and just below

the open window

the man in camouflage

said to his son,

"God damn, I told you.

Russians are in there,

and Jews, too!

What are we going to do?"

Things We Don't Do

 by Brett Rutherford

Go to church?
We don't do that.
No money to give;
nice clothes, never.
Father an atheist,
Mother afraid
of the taunts
of the church ladies
about her family,
the things they did
in that shack in the woods
when men came calling.

One summer they let

a church put on

some Bible classes

at the schoolhouse.

I was sent. Bright books

of Bible stories laid forth

Old Testament and New.

I asked too many

questions, mostly about

dinosaurs and other planets.

They sent me home,

asked that I not

come back again, ever.

Things we don't do

include bicycles,

new shoes, clothes

from a big store,

and Boy Scouts

because all that

took money.

I found a copy

of the Boy Scout manual.

Cover to cover I studied it,

envied the boys

those tent nights

and knot-tying skills.

Nowhere was where

we went all summer.

Once a museum

glimpsed from the car;

once or twice

a beautiful house

blurred in passing.

Ten aunts and uncles

never visited,

cousins unmet.

I did possess

a chemistry set,

with not much left

of its supplies.

In the dark cellar

I did my best

to create monsters.

At school,

it was assumed,

as I soared in reading,

that I must come

from the finest family,

that wealth surrounded

a seven-year-old

already reading

Faust and Hamlet.

It was my game

to let them think it so.

People Like That

by Brett Rutherford

Wednesday at noon
the sirens went off.

Miss Schreckengost
herded us down
to the musty cellar
where we were talked to
by the school nurse
one week, a soldier
the next, on what to do
if there was a flash,
a mushroom cloud.

Russia was far,
but over the Pole
the bombers might come.
Our Nike missiles
sat ready and armed,
but just in case,
we needed to know
to duck and cover,
take shelter, wait for
the Geiger counter
count, the all-clear
siren, the hope
that our teeth and hair
would not fall out,
that cows would yield
safe milk to drink
that did not glow.

Back in the class,
new maps arrived.
USSR in red
as big as Europe,
no, bigger.

Miss Schreckengost
sends us to
My Weekly Reader.

There are new words.
"Atheist" is one.
"Atheist," she said,
"does anyone know
what an atheist is?"

No one spoke.

"Anyone who doesn't
believe in God
is an Atheist,"
the teacher explained.

"That's me!" I thought.
I raised my hand
to proclaim it.

Behind me, a voice,
a fellow student,
muttered darkly,
"People like that
should be killed."

I lowered my hand.
Two lessons learned
that day.

Rhyme Not for the Sake of Rhyming

by Brett Rutherford

What can I say

about poems that rhyme?

Rhyme in mid-line,

or lines apart where least

expected, are fine:

they are like accidents

of digestion, a dash

of pepper. I like, too,

a final couplet, the way

Shakespeare tells us

a scene or speech

has reached its end.

A bow. Applause.

But as for rhyme

at ends of lines,

onward, onward,

plodding, plodding,

pendulum regular,

forced search

of dictionary

all too evident,

jack-hammering,

a thousand times,

no! English is not

a rhyming language.

Drunk monks

and college students

corrupted Latin

with rhyme; then from

Italian it leapt the channel

to infest like unwelcome

caterpillars. Be gone!

Not only has rhyme's

ship sailed, it floated

back, a rotting hulk,

seaweed and barnacles,

seagulls and slime,

fouling our pure waters.

For we who have lived

since Whitman,

rolled to the flow

of beat poetry,

inhaled long breaths

and the abrupt

leaps of improvisation,

rhyme is child's play,

the delight of idiots --

the glue that holds

a song together,

admittedly -- but not

what makes a poem

a poem. Free verse

is tightrope walking,

no net below.

Politics As Usual

by Brett Rutherford

From its dark cage

one bird goes forth.

An eagle waits

to swallow it.

Eater, eaten

share the same sky.

Night over all,

the earth forgets.

From its dark cage

one bird goes forth.

Hide in a tree!

Creep under leaves!

Construct a nest!

Do anything

except that climb

to high cloud-top!

Does it listen?

No. Up it flies!

Eagle takes all.

One feather falls.

Night over all,

the earth forgets.