Dennis - Callings

Table of Contents

ALSO BY CARL DENNIS

POETRY

A House of My Own
Climbing Down
Signs and Wonders
The Near World
The Outskirts of Troy
Meetings with Time
Ranking the Wishes
Practical Gods
New and Selected Poems 1974-2004
Unknown Friends

PROSE

Poetry as Persuasion

Thanks are due to the editors of the following magazines, in which some of these poems first appeared:

I would also like to thank the generous friends who gave me valuable criticism on all these poems: Charles Altieri, Thomas Centolella, Alan Feldman, Mark Halliday, Tony Hoagland, Martin Pops, and Philip Schultz.

Praise is for Catherine Barnett.

Belittle is for Thomas Centolella.

Instructions from Lucy in Elmira is for Alan Feldman.

More Poetry is for Martin Pops.

To the Angel of Death is for Philip Schultz.

No open land now, no freedom to practice
The first of the callings, hunting and gathering.
Still, the settlements have brought other options:
Openings for a blacksmith, a cashier, a dentist,
A forklift driver, a logo designer.
As for the young clerk in the garden store
At West Ferry and Grant whos had to put off
His plan to become a forester, maybe hell save enough
In a year or two for a forestry program
If he chooses to live now like a monk.
And I can add a woman I know well,
A teacher of ecology at City Honors,
Who once was troubled to think a career in music
Might have been hers if shed started lessons earlier
And proved more fervent. Now shes content
To rest after school while Chopins mazurkas
Or Schuberts impromptus waft from the stereo,
Cheered by the zeal of someone determined
To keep alive the vocation she didnt choose.
Maybe this evening shell listen a little longer
To mark the end of the five-week unit
Showing how a strong defense of the biosphere
Is in harmony with a strong economy.
Though few of her students may choose her field,
Its enough if they understand why others
Might find the work engrossing.
The options are more than ample,
And she doesnt divide them into high and low.
She agreed when I argued that maintaining a list
Of all the callings available might itself
Prove a useful calling, assigning a name
To many choices not named before.
And I agreed with her when she suggested
That simply listening to Chopin or Schubert
Might be a calling for the few possessed
Of a dedication thats undivided,
Who bring as much as they take away.

Hes a man whose words are few and measured,
The owner of the wine store at Hodge and Elmwood,
Who, when he pronounces a bottle fine,
Means neither that its merely decent
Nor that its so superb it can turn a day
One hopes to forget into a day
One hopes to recall long afterward.
He means if youre looking for something
To serve at a dinner welcoming home
A friend after an absence of many months,
This bottle wont disappoint you.
Fine, implying the wines too grand
To be drunk by yourself unless youre moved
To raise a glass to your lucky stars.
A toast, say, on the day you learn, after tests,
That the lingering pain in your side
Is nothing serious. A fine day,
Youll say to yourself as you step
From the clinic into a street
That appears in your hour-long absence
To have been washed by a yearlong rain
More cleansing than any youve known before.
In such a mood this bottle will prove so fitting
Youll raise a glass to the vintners husbandry
And to whatever his parents did to encourage
His loyalty to the highest standards.
And why not a toast to the village women
You can imagine as barefoot girls
Treading the grapes in a giant tub?
Theyll all be here in the first sip
Thats the unstated guarantee
Implied by the owners terse endorsement.
A fine bottle that shows how open you are
To the gifts that sun and soil unite to offer,
How keen to enjoy them when they pass your way.

Tribal music is throbbing tonight from River Records
As I leave the warmth of the Hunan Kitchen
And make my way along snow-struck Niagara Street.
A heavy drumbeat that might have prompted
Even the tribal elders to join the dance.
It follows me, fading, as I follow the smoke
Of my own breath the few blocks to my car.
Nobody out braving the cold tonight,
Unless I count the man bedded down
In the dark doorway of Safeway Appliances.
For a moment, the inch-thick blanket of snow
Flung over him and his cart seems to translate him
Into a marble monument to an unknown refugee
Whose tribal village had to be abandoned.
Maybe its well dried up.
Maybe it was torched by soldiers or gangs.
Here, he sleeps by the roadside. There,
Hed be cozy under his own roof
With his wife and children, or lodged as a guest
With a family inspired by the tribal doctrine
That regards the roofless as god-protected.
If this night turns out as cold as predicted,
A van on the prowl may cart him down
To the homeless shelter. As I pass him,
My wish that he wake up rested
Leaves nothing changed. When I reach my car,
Its the work of a moment to brush the snow off
And ease out into the trickle of late-night traffic
With Its Only a Paper Moon on the golden-oldies station
For company. Back in the thirties, when this song was new,
A man like the sleeper might have ridden the rails
With a tribe of nomads looking for work.
Now hes simply someone soon to wake up
To the chilly fact he lacks an address
And isnt likely to find one.
If better fortune finds him, it will take the form
Of someone enrolled in a tribe I dont belong to,
Bound by a code I have no trouble
Admiring from a distance as suiting
The gifts of its eager adherents exactly.
For people like that, such kindness comes naturally,
I tell myself. For me to attempt it
Id have to pretend to be someone else.

Those few who ride off in search of the truth
And are lucky enough to come across it
After years of wandering
Are likely to settle down on the spot
And bask in its steady brightness.
For them to trudge back to the dark for us,
Some motive other than love of the truth
Must also be working,
One they may not be able to name,
One they may try to resist
Even at the moment they reach the ridge