As If It Mattered

songs after the wedding

Voices rose in the kitchen, arguing
Poetics, or politics, passionately.
Tom Montag looked at me,
That stolid Midwestern face
Unmoving, but the eyes, as always, vivid.
"As if it mattered," he said.
"As if it mattered."

---

What matters
Is leaving the door open
And a place laid
So that gods and ghosts,
Skywalkers and wandering players,
Have a place at the table.

---

Easier said than done:
In the nature of things
You plan for the expected guests.

---

This is
The year the tanagers came
And the year of my first colonoscopy;
I must say that our rites of passage
Are every bit as odd as anything I read
In books of anthropology.

---

The trouble with God
Is that she doesn't want to be courted,
Cajoled, coerced, publicized,
Or understood. She only wants
Our stiff necks to bow.

---

Give me your hand
We'll walk behind the waterfall
As shy as the water-ousels.

---

The spray would be blown into your hair
And if I brushed it out of your face
My hand would be wet
And my thumb, when it touched your lips
Would taste of the waterfall.

---

Sometimes I wish
They had never made all the songs.

---

But here, the small rain
Down can rain
The waitresses
Are beautiful
And the tall, bearded cook
Looks like he sprang
From the deck of a trireme.

---

Listen
Don't waste time.