Carl Dennis

Aren't you glad at least that the earthworms Under the grass are ignorant, as they eat the earth, Of the good they confer on us, that their silence Isn't a silent reproof for our bad manners, Our never casting earthward a crumb of thanks For their keeping the soil from packing so tight That no root, however determined, could pierce it? Imagine if they suspected how much we owe them, How the weight of our debt would crush us Even if they enjoyed keeping the grass alive, The garden flowers and vegetables, the clover, And wanted nothing that we could give them, Not even the merest nod of acknowledgment. A debt to angels would be easy in comparison, Bright, weightless creatures of cloud, who serve An even brighter and lighter master. Lucky for us they don't know what they're doing, These puny anonymous creatures of dark and damp Who eat simply to live, with no more sense of mission Than nature feels in providing for our survival. Better save our gratitude for a friend Who gives us more than we can give in return And never hints she's waiting for reciprocity. "If I had nickel, I'd give it to you," The lover says, who, having nothing available In the solid, indicative world, scrapes up A coin or two in the world of the subjunctive. "A nickel with a hole drilled in the top So you can fasten it to your bracelet, a charm To protect you against your enemies." For his sake, she'd wear it, not for her own, So he might believe she's safe as she saunters Home across the field at night, the moon above her, Below her the loam, compressed by the soles of her loafers, And the tunneling earthworms, tireless, silent, As they persist, oblivious, in their service.

It’s the last day, but I’m keeping the news to myself. If yesterday it made sense for letter carriers To carry letters from door to door, The job still ought to be worth doing. Why tell what I know and risk a walkout? Let firefighters race to the last fire. Let platoons of police set up their last lines So the factions that come to the demonstration Do battle only in words and gestures. The day is different, but only for me, Knowing as I do that it offers the last chance For a cautious investor to resist his nature enough To back a grocery in a battered district, And the last chance for the would-be grocers To open a bottle of good champagne In the kitchen of the friend who’s led them Through the small-print maze of the application. And now they’re toasting the months to come Scheduled to move the project along From drawing blueprints to cutting ribbons. Shall I tell them their expectations are dreams If the dreams impart to the day contour and substance? Though silent, I’m rooting for them to let the day Expand to include the days to be denied them. And I hope that the friend who’s pouring A final round in his kitchen isn’t disturbed As his small apartment fills with the sound Of squeaking from across the hall, though yesterday He banged on his neighbor's door for quiet. It’s his last chance to endorse a woman Bent on learning from scratch to play the viola, To respect her for finding an hour a day for practice, As if raising two sons alone And teaching civics at a high school Not renowned for civility weren't enough. Should I sit on a stone and lament That the day is her last if it still contains, Scrolled up within it, the years she'll need To master the art of voicing feelings Not now expressed, at home or in class, About the distance between the world She’d like to inhabit and the world she does? Some other prophet, convinced the future Depends on the flow of time to give it substance, May decide to speak out. I’m keeping silent As one of her sons sits at his desk Dividing a page into reasons for leaving home And reasons for staying. Now on this last day It seems that home is best defined as any region On earth that has much to teach him, And now as the region fit to receive the most Of whatever he’ll have to offer After he learns where his talents lie.

We here at Progressive Health would like to thank you For being one of the generous few who've promised To bequeath your vital organs to whoever needs them. Now we'd like to give you the opportunity To step out far in front of the other donors By acting a little sooner than you expected, Tomorrow, to be precise, the day you're scheduled To come in for your yearly physical. Six patients Are waiting this very minute in intensive care Who will likely die before another liver And spleen and pairs of lungs and kidneys Match theirs as closely as yours do. Twenty years, Maybe more, are left you, granted, but the gain Of these patients might total more than a century. To you, of course, one year of your life means more Than six of theirs, but to no one else, No one as concerned with the general welfare As you've claimed to be. As for your poems— The few you may have it in you to finish— Even if we don't judge them by those you've written, Even if we assume you finally stage a breakthrough, It's doubtful they'll raise one Lazarus from a grave Metaphoric or literal. But your body is guaranteed To work six wonders. As for the gaps you'll leave As an aging bachelor in the life of friends, They'll close far sooner than the open wounds Soon to be left in the hearts of husbands and wives, Parents and children, by the death of the six Who now are failing. Just imagine how grateful They'll all be when they hear of your grand gesture. Summer and winter they'll visit your grave, in shifts, For as long as they live, and stoop to tend it, And leave it adorned with flowers or holly wreaths, While your friends, who are just as forgetful As you are, just as liable to be distracted, Will do no more than a makeshift job of upkeep. If the people you'll see tomorrow pacing the halls Of our crowded facility don't move you enough, They'll make you at least uneasy. No happy future Is likely in store for a man like you whose conscience Will ask him to certify every hour from now on Six times as full as it was before, your work Six times as strenuous, your walks in the woods Six times as restorative as anyone else's. Why be a drudge, staggering to the end of your life Under this crushing burden when, with a single word, You could be a god, one of the few gods Who, when called on, really listens?

It must be troubling for the god who loves you To ponder how much happier you’d be today Had you been able to glimpse your many futures. It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings Driving home from the office, content with your week— Three fine houses sold to deserving families— Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened Had you gone to your second choice for college, Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted Whose ardent opinions on painting and music Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion. A life thirty points above the life you’re living On any scale of satisfaction. And every point A thorn in the side of the god who loves you. You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments So she can save her empathy for the children. And would you want this god to compare your wife With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus? It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight Than the conversation you’re used to. And think how this loving god would feel Knowing that the man next in line for your wife Would have pleased her more than you ever will Even on your best days, when you really try. Can you sleep at night believing a god like that Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is And what could have been will remain alive for him Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill Running out in the snow for the morning paper, Losing eleven years that the god who loves you Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend No closer than the actual friend you made at college, The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight And write him about the life you can talk about With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed, Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

That was a great compliment the Greeks paid to human life When they imagined their gods living as humans do, With the same pleasure in love and feasting, Headstrong as we are, turbulent, quick to anger, Slow to forgive. Just like us, only immortal. And now that those gods have proven mortal too And heaven and earth can’t be divided, Every death means a divine occasion Has been taken from us, a divine perspective, Though the loss gets only a line or two in the news. Hard to believe the headlines this morning That a banker on Mt. Olympus has been pilfering, That a builder has been guilty of shoddy construction On a bridge that spans a river in heaven, Cutting corners to squirrel away his fortune For a better day, when the great day has already come. For news that heartens we must turn to the classifieds. Here in what’s left of heaven it’s right to advertise For a soul mate. It’s right to look for a job That lets us incarnate spirit more fully And leave something behind that time is kinder to Than the flesh of gods. Lucky there’s work. Lucky the streets of heaven are in need of repair. Paint is peeling from the dream-house trim. Holy rainwater backs up in leaf-clogged gutters Till the ceiling sags and tiles need regrouting. And look at the list of practical items for sale— Used snowblowers, croquet sets, chainlink fencing. And what about a wooden canoe with two paddles. Why don’t we make time for a turn before sundown? Out on the broad lake a breeze will find us That’s wafted around the planet to cool our divinity. The clouds will hover above us in a giant halo As we watch our brother, the sun, descend, His gentle face turned toward us, his godly expression Undarkened by accusation or disappointment Or the thought of something he’s left undone.

Carpenters whose wives have run off Are sometimes discovered weeping on the job. But even then they don’t complain of their work. Whitman’s father was a carpenter. He was so happy hammering houses That he jumped with a shout from the roof beam And rolled with a yawp in the timothy. This led his son to conclude wrongly That all workmen are singers. Whitman’s father was weak. He had trouble holding a job. He hoped that the house he was working on Would be lived in by a man more steady Than he was, who would earn his sleep, Dreaming easy under a sound roof With no rain in his face. Of course, there are bad carpenters everywhere. They don’t care if the walls don’t meet. “After all,” they argue, “We’re not building airplanes.” But Whitman’s father measured his nails. Many mornings, clacking his plane, He crooned a song to the corners, Urging them on to a snug fit. No needles of heat will escape through a crack If he can help it, no threads of light.

If on your grandmother's birthday you burn a candle To honor her memory, you might think of burning an extra To honor the memory of someone who never met her, A man who may have come to the town she lived in Looking for work and never found it. Picture him taking a stroll one morning, After a month of grief with the want ads, To refresh himself in the park before moving on. Suppose he notices on the gravel path the shards Of a green glass bottle that your grandmother, Then still a girl, will be destined to step on When she wanders barefoot away from her school picnic If he doesn't stoop down and scoop the mess up With the want-ad section and carry it to a trash can. For you to burn a candle for him You needn't suppose the cut would be a deep one, Just deep enough to keep her at home The night of the hay ride when she meets Helen, Who is soon to become her dearest friend, Whose brother George, thirty years later, Helps your grandfather with a loan so his shoe store Doesn't go under in the Great Depression And his son, your father, is able to stay in school Where his love of learning is fanned into flames, A love he labors, later, to kindle in you. How grateful you are for your father's efforts Is shown by the candles you've burned for him. But today, for a change, why not a candle For the man whose name is unknown to you? Take a moment to wonder whether he died at home With friends and family or alone on the road, On the look-out for no one to sit at his bedside And hold his hand, the very hand It's time for you to imagine holding.