Solving for X. Robert B. Shaw

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СКАЧАТЬ recognizable: your neighborhood,

      with of course some of the bigger trees

      gone for pulp and the more upscale houses

      sporting new riot-proof fencing which

      they seem hardly to need in this calm sector

      whose lawns look even more vacuumed than they used to.

      Only a soft whirr of electric automobiles

      ruffles unburdened air. Your own house looks

      about the same, except for the solar panels.

      Inside, the latest occupants sit facing

      the wall-size liquid crystal flat TV screen

      they haggle and commune with, ordering beach towels

      or stockings, or instructing their stockbrokers,

      while in the kitchen dinner cooks itself.

      Why marvel over windows that flip at a touch

      from clear to opaque, or carpets that a lifetime

      of scuffs will never stain? This all was destined,

      down to the newest model ultrasound toothbrush.

      Only the stubborn, ordinary ratio

      of sadness to happiness seems immune to progress,

      and it will take more time than even you

      have at your disposal to find out why.

      The same and not the same, this venue fascinates,

      spiriting you through closed familiar doors

      on random unremarkable evenings when

      you will have been gone

      for how long? — Just a bit longer than your successors

      have had to make these premises their own.

      However much their climate-controlled rooms

      glow vibrant with halogen, they will not see you.

      But they may wonder why, for no clear reason,

      they find their thoughts so often drawn to the past.

Back Again

      The wormy apple tree

      we chainsawed to a stump

      is not content to be

      a barren amputee.

      It has produced a clump

      of rank and spindly shoots,

      a thicket still unthinned,

      each one a witch’s wand,

      suggesting that the roots

      regard our surgery

      as one more hostile thing

      to overcome in spring,

      like parried blades of wind —

      mischief to live beyond.

A Bowl of Stone Fruit

      Never forget the child’s face, nonplused

      on touching first an apple, then a pear,

      then a banana, his bewildered stare

      becoming peevish as his buoyant trust

      in the appearances that grown-ups prize

      founders. Items for which his taste buds lusted

      are for display, and regularly dusted.

      Try to explain how people feast their eyes

      on such a centerpiece, how they are able

      to cherish a quartz peach, whose blushing skin

      is bonded pigment, stone bearing within

      no stone a tree would spring from. Now the table

      stands taller than his head; but watch him grow,

      to grow unflustered by the cold and hard

      baubles adult taste holds in fond regard.

      Never forget his face, first made to know.

Airs and Graces

      All this was years ago — back in the days

      of afternoon visits between ladies

      with children brought along, resigned to boredom.

      Her mother always stayed for a second cup;

      her mother’s aunt, happy to be a hostess,

      kept pressing macaroons on her niece

      and grand-niece (something neither of them favored).

      It always seemed to be raining when they went there

      and there was no dog or cat to play with.

      When the women were tired of glancing sideways

      to see her fidgeting or shedding crumbs,

      they’d send her to the spare room to explore

      the Dress-Up Box. This could be interesting

      if she was in the mood for vintage glamour.

      The Box was really a modest-sized tin trunk,

      lined with flowered wallpaper and filled

      with bits of swank from several decades back.

      There were a few dresses, much too large,

      trimmed with velvet and imbued with camphor.

      It was the accessories she was drawn to.

      There was a pair of white gloves that on her

      were almost elbow-length. The missing buttons

      forced her to bunch them at her wrists, so that

      she looked like a Walt Disney character.

      There were various paper-and-bamboo fans

      with СКАЧАТЬ