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Snow Day
A snow day, rare thing,
When lawless weather bends the latitudes
Ever so slightly northward
And East Texas becomes Vermont--
Though it's only an inch deep,
And the leaves show through in places.
Such economy of illusion
To conjure for our pleasure and delight
This thinnest winter wonderland.
Barely time to contrive a snowman,
Slide down the slope a few times
On a cardboard sled,
Pretend the wood is virgin under the white
Of this fleeting immaculate garment.
Still, the snowflakes are real,
Authentic crystals of ice made in the air.
Once in a while you catch what seems
(Though it emphatically is not)
A real work of art,
In the form of a snowflake
Intricate as the best of Grandma's doilies,
Settling from the sky,
Doomed to disappear like one of those
Zen designs the monks make of colored sand
And then erase, to illustrate,
I suppose, the transience of human existence,
Which is a form of beauty I can deeply admire
But which nevertheless always leaves me,
Like these rare snow days,
Vaguely dissatisfied,
Profoundly unconvinced.
Copyright 2000 by H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.
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Monique Amador
Are you the teacher who used to teach the dances?
Asked the woman with a child in tow
On a random morning
In the hall of the old school,
It’s guts teeming still with hope and grief,
Gathered in rows and lines,
Massed faces set against the age-old
Routines of socialization.
Do you remember m’hija Monique?
And came looming
From the sea of memory
Twelve-year-old Monique Amador,
Surrounded by cherubim of other years,
Child goddess Monique too big for her age,
Too innocent for her eyes,
Whose beauty struck even the old spinsters dumb
And distracted Authority from its policies
And sickened the boys with spring glands
And commanded the eyes of all with eyes.
Monique Amador of the splendid teeth and endless smile,
Who never did any harm greater than
The sudden, aching involuntary bite of her beauty
Was dead now these four years, shot in the chest
Four times at age seventeen.
Nobody ever knew who or why,
Said her mother holding by the hand
The little boy with black amber eyes
Copyright 2000, H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved. Copyright 2000, H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.
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New Notes From the Underground
Imagine our surprise to find
The continents were after all
Only rivers of rock bound by banks of water,
The sun's shadow and the night's illumination,
Dreams solid as pyramids,
Levitating amid the ephemeral
Blocks of granite piled on granite
Fabled Atlantis—not nearly so well-made as
The supple twelve-year-old
Somersaulting through history
Between bayonets and bombs,
Beyond the seas nibbled by lava,
And the land nibbled by sea,
Under the flood, impervious to
Blight, tornados, plagues, and despots,
Happy it's Friday on a fall day
And the boy's watching
On the grassy plain behind the school
Where she spins like a leaf,
Eternal nymph, chained like Prometheus
To hope and death, but for all that,
Quick and alive.
Copyright 2001 by H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.
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Motel Room
Another motel room.
You turn on the light
The bed, the mirror, the chair, the TV
Are just as you left them
In that other town.
Aloof in its cleanliness,
It refuses to play home,
Like a whore that won't kiss you.
Temporary occupancy is all you get.
The mirror accepts your image,
Stamps it, hands it back.
The mattress gives a little
But no more.
Outside the coquettish pink neon
Winks at truckers all night,
Switches the shadow of the blinds
On and off as you hang your identity
On the hook provided,
To endure or enjoy a few hours
Of rented anonymity.
Copyright 2001 by H. L. Rucks. All rights reserved.
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