You Shall Serve

Ray Gonzalez

Pablo Neruda fled Chile on horseback,
going into exile to see how the snow peaks
got in the way of Federico García
Lorca’s ascent to heaven.
When he paused at the edge of the world,
Neruda found the prison gate that opened
when Miguel Hernandez lifted away,
dying cities in his skeletal palms marking
the path for the Spanish man to sit upon
the crown of his father and pray.
An Apache crossed the train tracks to hand
your grandfather a token of his escape,
the passing of a white stone into his hands
marking Bonifacio for the rest of his short days.
When the stone rolled off his deathbed,
your mother caught it, swears to this day
only a girl of thirteen could reach out
and pluck her father’s rock out of the air.
Robert Frost visited his daughter in the insane
asylum, madness in the dark woods surrounding
a wooden fence with branches that gorged
upon the ice until the barn gave way.
When Frost walked through the trees,
he stumbled upon a frozen milk can,
kicked it out of the way so he could
run without having to look behind him.
The white stone turned gray, then black
over the decades, your mother refusing
to add it to the jar of rocks you collected
as a boy, setting the heavy container
upon a Red Chief writing tablet as
a gift on your thirteenth birthday.
Decades later, you ran into Larry Levis at the foot
of the stairs, the young poet burning with fame,
the bottle of bourbon slipping out of his arms
as he stumbled to the second floor, though
the crowd he had to address was downstairs
where their mute faces waited for his words
at a retreat near mountains that refused
the snows that year, a gathering of translators
offering Neruda and Miguel, tall rooms of papers
and books turning into cliffs and gorging rapids
after the conference when you rode the raft down
the Colorado River and almost fell in, Larry offering
homage to the exiled poor, his sentences left
behind when hundreds of white stones pounded
the cabins of the poets that cold night,
waking them to start counting the dead.

Pablo Neruda fled Chile on horseback,
going into exile to see how the snow peaks

got in the way of Federico García
Lorca’s ascent to heaven.

When he paused at the edge of the world,
Neruda found the prison gate that opened

when Miguel Hernandez lifted away,
dying cities in his skeletal palms marking

the path for the Spanish man to sit upon
the crown of his father and pray.

An Apache crossed the train tracks to hand
your grandfather a token of his escape,

the passing of a white stone into his hands
marking Bonifacio for the rest of his short days.

When the stone rolled off his deathbed,
your mother caught it, swears to this day

only a girl of thirteen could reach out
and pluck her father’s rock out of the air.

Robert Frost visited his daughter in the insane
asylum, madness in the dark woods surrounding

a wooden fence with branches that gorged
upon the ice until the barn gave way.

When Frost walked through the trees,
he stumbled upon a frozen milk can,

kicked it out of the way so he could
run without having to look behind him.

The white stone turned gray, then black
over the decades, your mother refusing

to add it to the jar of rocks you collected
as a boy, setting the heavy container

upon a Red Chief writing tablet as
a gift on your thirteenth birthday.

Decades later, you ran into Larry Levis at the foot
of the stairs, the young poet burning with fame,

the bottle of bourbon slipping out of his arms
as he stumbled to the second floor, though

the crowd he had to address was downstairs
where their mute faces waited for his words

at a retreat near mountains that refused
the snows that year, a gathering of translators

offering Neruda and Miguel, tall rooms of papers
and books turning into cliffs and gorging rapids

after the conference when you rode the raft down
the Colorado River and almost fell in, Larry offering

homage to the exiled poor, his sentences left
behind when hundreds of white stones pounded

the cabins of the poets that cold night,
waking them to start counting the dead.

–

–

Ray Gonzalez is the author of The Heat of Arrivals (1997 PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Book Award), The Hawk Temple at Tierra Grande (2003 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry), Consideration of the Guitar: New and Selected Poems (2005) and the forthcoming Cool Auditor (2009). Turtle Pictures (University of Arizona Press, 2000), a mixed-genre text, received the 2001 Minnesota Book Award for Poetry.  His poetry has appeared in the 1999, 2000, and 2003 editions of The Best American Poetry.