Doug Tanoury

More Finches

On a narrow ledge
Under the front porch
Awning

Families of finches
Have built three
Nests

Sloppy and unkempt
With tangled strands
Blowing

This way and that
Like three women in a
Convertible

Driving on the Interstate
With the top down on a
June afternoon



Maps

Sister Antonina's map
Of the world worked
Like a large window shade
That pulled down
And went up noisily
In true window shade fashion,
Its roller turning made the sound
Of a morning dove cooing, and
The map's fabric winding up
Were wings flapping.
I remember France was green,
The Brest jutting out toward England
And the North Atlantic.
Italy was faded terra cotta, almost a pink,
Against a deep blue Adriatic.

In fourth grade
At Nativity of Our Lord school,
I sat in the front desk
Where I memorized
The shapes of continents and countries.
When I passed the map
Going to lunch or returning from recess
I would run my hand
Across the Mediterranean
To feel the texture of the fabric
And hear the tum-tum sound
Of my fingers drumming
Against Greece and the Aegean.
Occasionally, on toetips and stretching
I could brush a finger
Along St. Bernard's Pass.

I was always sad to hear
The morning dove calling
And wings flapping
As the world retracted
To reveal arithmetic problems
Or spelling assignments
On the blackboard
Written in Sister Antonina's
Precise penmanship.
For reasons that mystify me still,
I failed the fourth grade,
Although I stuck my hands
Into every southern sea,
And I touched Athens,
And I touched Rome,
And something in them
Touched me.

(

Last Words

I had a dream I met
The ghost of my father
In an all-night supermarket.
I was walking down the produce
And frozen food aisle
When I saw him following me,
Walking close behind,
But I did not recognize him
Until he spoke the name
Of my childhood: "Hi Dougie."
As I heard his voice
I knew him at once.
I turned to hug him,
And for one long moment
In the brightly lit store
Between the prickly pears
And frozen pizzas
We stood embracing.
He never spoke again,
And I too not speaking,
Just held him.



Winter Pears


On a wooden swing hanging
From the highest bough
Of his backyard pear tree
We learned to fly at the
Speed of dreams on summer
Afternoons, leaning back
And gripping rusted
Chains and looking far up
Into thick foliage that hid
The dark limbs that held us.

From the tall tree that grew
Small winter pears
I'd fly with him across the
Summers and briefly
Forget for a moment
My parent's marriage,
The family finances,
My sister's sickness.
In quick motion sweeping us
Upward, we learned to fly.

Before I knew of fallen fruit
Or how spring winds
Waste pear blossoms,
I knew him. He flew
Unfettered and without
Cares where dreams
Grew slow like winter pears
On the highest branches
To ripen and fall only
In late summer.

Today, under a pear tree
Drooping with fruit
I dreamt him here.






Disembodied


On nights when I'm away from her,
I often think that this is what
It must be like to be dead,
To be separated by physical laws
So far reaching and fundamental
That space and time both conspire
To make touch a memory and
The movement of her body
A phantom that passes only
In my mind.

On nights when I'm away from her,
I often wonder if I have passed away.
It feels as if I am a ghost
With a past I cannot relive
And longings I cannot satisfy now,
Separated by an uncrossable gulf
From her and the sound
Of her slippers soughing
Across the hallway floor.

(c)1996 Doug Tanoury