June 2016
David Huddle
dhuddle@uvm.edu
dhuddle@uvm.edu
Both sections of this poem are autobiographical, and they’re set in Vermont, though neither of those facts is important. I had the title “Two” in mind before I finished writing the first part of it. In my sense of what I thought I was doing with this composition, they were equal parts of a single poem about the human (and canine) experience of "two-ness.” When I learned that the theme for the June issue of V-V was “Two,” I thought, I have a poem that might work for that occasion.
Two
1
In our neighborhood a Chinese woman
marches our sidewalks with a face
that says, I hate this place,
I hate you, I hate all your kind.
Other days I see her with the woman
who must be her daughter. These two
walk arm in arm, speaking closely,
smiling as if they’re home
in their mountain village, it’s springtime,
and the last war ended years ago.
How can I know what they tell each other?
How can I hear the older woman when she says,
My darling one, please forgive him,
you know tomorrow he’ll be contrite.
He’ll buy you another yellow bowl
and carry it to you filled with blossoms.
Again it is the older woman who speaks:
Now why must you go away so soon? Can you not
stay longer with me? Only you understand me.
Come, walk closer with me! I want to sing with you.
Then these two walk, they begin singing
so softly I can’t possibly hear them,
and they don’t even use a language I know:
Moving puzzle of light, goes their song,
shadows the willow makes on this earth—
can the leaves ever know the wind again
if you do not turn your face to me,
if you do not return my smile?
2
Among moving cars stands a retriever,
wagging its tail—in four lanes
of stopping, starting drivers.
These cars aren’t sheep, the dog says
nervously. It’s not so much afraid
as uncertain. It moves—it’s almost
hit!--then again. This is too hard to watch,
but stopped here, we can’t help it. What to do?
In one lane, a truck’s stopped with the driver
leaning out its window, the dog staring up
at him--Please tell me what to do,
says the dog, certain the man knows
and will tell him any moment now, Come? Sit?
Stay? Go get the bird? Please sir, what
do you want of me? We wonder, too, what
command will make sense of this, what
can possibly explain it—busy intersection,
man in the truck, golden retriever in the street.
Did the dog anger the master? Are drugs
to blame? Divorce? I know you’re not trying
to abandon me. The dog calmly pants. I know
you wouldn’t do that. Finally the man
pulls across traffic into a service station,
the dog trotting behind the truck. That’s when
our light changes. That’s when
we leave them, the dog still wagging
its tail, gazing up at the driver
who’s still leaning out his truck window.
My wife says, “That didn’t make sense.”
We’re driving south on Route 7,
which, at the moment, makes sublime sense
to us. We don’t know exactly what that was
we saw back there, we just know
we’re not there yet,
the place where what you live for
just about kills you.
-from Summer Lake: New & Selected Poems (LSU Press, 1999)
Two
1
In our neighborhood a Chinese woman
marches our sidewalks with a face
that says, I hate this place,
I hate you, I hate all your kind.
Other days I see her with the woman
who must be her daughter. These two
walk arm in arm, speaking closely,
smiling as if they’re home
in their mountain village, it’s springtime,
and the last war ended years ago.
How can I know what they tell each other?
How can I hear the older woman when she says,
My darling one, please forgive him,
you know tomorrow he’ll be contrite.
He’ll buy you another yellow bowl
and carry it to you filled with blossoms.
Again it is the older woman who speaks:
Now why must you go away so soon? Can you not
stay longer with me? Only you understand me.
Come, walk closer with me! I want to sing with you.
Then these two walk, they begin singing
so softly I can’t possibly hear them,
and they don’t even use a language I know:
Moving puzzle of light, goes their song,
shadows the willow makes on this earth—
can the leaves ever know the wind again
if you do not turn your face to me,
if you do not return my smile?
2
Among moving cars stands a retriever,
wagging its tail—in four lanes
of stopping, starting drivers.
These cars aren’t sheep, the dog says
nervously. It’s not so much afraid
as uncertain. It moves—it’s almost
hit!--then again. This is too hard to watch,
but stopped here, we can’t help it. What to do?
In one lane, a truck’s stopped with the driver
leaning out its window, the dog staring up
at him--Please tell me what to do,
says the dog, certain the man knows
and will tell him any moment now, Come? Sit?
Stay? Go get the bird? Please sir, what
do you want of me? We wonder, too, what
command will make sense of this, what
can possibly explain it—busy intersection,
man in the truck, golden retriever in the street.
Did the dog anger the master? Are drugs
to blame? Divorce? I know you’re not trying
to abandon me. The dog calmly pants. I know
you wouldn’t do that. Finally the man
pulls across traffic into a service station,
the dog trotting behind the truck. That’s when
our light changes. That’s when
we leave them, the dog still wagging
its tail, gazing up at the driver
who’s still leaning out his truck window.
My wife says, “That didn’t make sense.”
We’re driving south on Route 7,
which, at the moment, makes sublime sense
to us. We don’t know exactly what that was
we saw back there, we just know
we’re not there yet,
the place where what you live for
just about kills you.
-from Summer Lake: New & Selected Poems (LSU Press, 1999)
©2016 David Huddle