Sublime

He is mad about being small when you were big, but no, that’s not it, he is mad about being helpless when you were powerful, but no, not that either, he is mad about being contingent when you were necessary, not quite it, he is insane because when he loved you, you didn’t notice. DONALD BARTHELME, THE DEAD FATHER

there was scarcely anything left of body or mind by which one could say, ‘This is he,’ or, ‘This is she.’

I remember being amazed that death could so easily rise up from the nothing of a boyish afternoon, billow up like fog.

When he died I had been away from home for a little over a year. In that year I had had time to become aware of the meaning of all my father’s bitter warnings, had discovered the secret of his proudly pursed lips and rigid carriage: I had discovered the weight of white people in the world. I saw that this had been for my ancestors and now would be

THE LEADEN EYED Let not young souls be smothered out before They do quaint deeds and fully flaunt their pride. It is the world’s sore crime its babes grow dull, Its poor are ox-like, limp and leaden eyed. Not that they starve, but starve so dreamlessly, Not that they sow, but they seldom reap. Not that they serve, but have no gods to serve Not that

People were made of nothing so much as dust, and I couldn’t see that doctoring all that dust was a bit better than writing poems people would remember and repeat to themselves when they were unhappy or sick and couldn’t sleep.