speed
with our headlights opening the gravel road
the white noise of rubber on stones billowing
red dust into the tail lights to close it
Melissa was thinking a lot about poetry. About how it was the oldest art form in existence, and how, despite that, she didnât reallyâreallyâknow what it was, couldnât define it. And she very much wanted to, wanted an answer of some kind. So she asked the one person she was sure would know. She hadnât expected his response.
âI think,â heâd said, âwe all, poets or not, have the feeling of what poetry is. We know when something poignant, something song-worthy, passes through our lives, makes one of our days more of a story worth telling than just another empty orbit of the clock. We know what poetry is when we hear it, when we see it, touch it. That much is almost simple. But what poetry is to me, personally, is the larger complex that it produces, that we are imbedded inside.
âIf you think of your own life,â he continued, âyou might be able to string its narration together using the exotic beads of those few, most singular moments that youâve experienced, the big turning points, the poems, until you could look at those glass colours all butted up together, side by side. But what you donât see looking at itâor even stop to considerâis that every human being that your path collides with at those poignant moments also has a string of beads, which is now intersecting with yours, and so is woven into it. And I think that this network of blindness to the poetry of other lives, this reluctance to penetrate such an expansive yet simple codeâto admit the verse that is beneath everything, behind everyone, impelling its way through every existence, silently, cloaked and teemingâthat we could exist without acknowledging this interplay around us, is, to me, exactly that: poetry. Poetry is being deaf to the extravagant choir that is behind you, below you, above you. But singing anyway. It is the collective and soundless cacophony of our solitary melodies, which is humming, even now, ringing in our ears with its almost perfect silence.â
Melissa considered his take, often. So often that sheâd been thinking about it just a few minutes before her father dropped by, unannounced, after a four-year hiatus from her life. Just before sheâd closed her book and stood to answer the door, hesitating at the door handle.
June 11, 1965
The policeman twisted around in his seat to speak to the two girls in the back. âNow youâre sure,â he paused, looking at each of them individually, â real sure that this is your uncleâs house?â
âOh yeah. I couldnât tell before cuz we drive a different way, but now . . .â Hilda Crowfeathers leaned toward the window, giving the house another thoughtful appraisal, âYeah, thatâs it. Iâm sure.â
The officer looked them over skeptically, a voice crackling numbers out of the dispatch radio behind him, âThatâs five-two-five at station, confirm.â He lifted his hat and scratched the line of moisture-matted hair beneath the brim. Then he gave them one last serious glance, got out, walked seriously to the front door, and rapped on it three times with a serious fist.
While his back was turned Hilda let out a stifled giggle and, as always when she smiled, used the tips of her fingers to cover her teeth, which happened to be immaculateâwell aligned, large, so white they darkened the russet of her skin.
But her cousin sitting beside her, Brandy, wasnât joining in the amusement. The truth was that, to her, things had stopped being funny ever since they were ushered into the backseat of the police car and the doorâwith its blank panel that was missing a window lever, ashtray, lock, and handleâwas slammed shut. She wondered where this was going to end, when she would be able to return to
with our headlights opening the gravel road
the white noise of rubber on stones billowing
red dust into the tail lights to close it
Melissa was thinking a lot about poetry. About how it was the oldest art form in existence, and how, despite that, she didnât reallyâreallyâknow what it was, couldnât define it. And she very much wanted to, wanted an answer of some kind. So she asked the one person she was sure would know. She hadnât expected his response.
âI think,â heâd said, âwe all, poets or not, have the feeling of what poetry is. We know when something poignant, something song-worthy, passes through our lives, makes one of our days more of a story worth telling than just another empty orbit of the clock. We know what poetry is when we hear it, when we see it, touch it. That much is almost simple. But what poetry is to me, personally, is the larger complex that it produces, that we are imbedded inside.
âIf you think of your own life,â he continued, âyou might be able to string its narration together using the exotic beads of those few, most singular moments that youâve experienced, the big turning points, the poems, until you could look at those glass colours all butted up together, side by side. But what you donât see looking at itâor even stop to considerâis that every human being that your path collides with at those poignant moments also has a string of beads, which is now intersecting with yours, and so is woven into it. And I think that this network of blindness to the poetry of other lives, this reluctance to penetrate such an expansive yet simple codeâto admit the verse that is beneath everything, behind everyone, impelling its way through every existence, silently, cloaked and teemingâthat we could exist without acknowledging this interplay around us, is, to me, exactly that: poetry. Poetry is being deaf to the extravagant choir that is behind you, below you, above you. But singing anyway. It is the collective and soundless cacophony of our solitary melodies, which is humming, even now, ringing in our ears with its almost perfect silence.â
Melissa considered his take, often. So often that sheâd been thinking about it just a few minutes before her father dropped by, unannounced, after a four-year hiatus from her life. Just before sheâd closed her book and stood to answer the door, hesitating at the door handle.
June 11, 1965
The policeman twisted around in his seat to speak to the two girls in the back. âNow youâre sure,â he paused, looking at each of them individually, â real sure that this is your uncleâs house?â
âOh yeah. I couldnât tell before cuz we drive a different way, but now . . .â Hilda Crowfeathers leaned toward the window, giving the house another thoughtful appraisal, âYeah, thatâs it. Iâm sure.â
The officer looked them over skeptically, a voice crackling numbers out of the dispatch radio behind him, âThatâs five-two-five at station, confirm.â He lifted his hat and scratched the line of moisture-matted hair beneath the brim. Then he gave them one last serious glance, got out, walked seriously to the front door, and rapped on it three times with a serious fist.
While his back was turned Hilda let out a stifled giggle and, as always when she smiled, used the tips of her fingers to cover her teeth, which happened to be immaculateâwell aligned, large, so white they darkened the russet of her skin.
But her cousin sitting beside her, Brandy, wasnât joining in the amusement. The truth was that, to her, things had stopped being funny ever since they were ushered into the backseat of the police car and the doorâwith its blank panel that was missing a window lever, ashtray, lock, and handleâwas slammed shut. She wondered where this was going to end, when she would be able to return to
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