One-Cent wonders

By Patrick T. Reardon

 

The dove descending breaks the air

With flame of incandescent terror

Of which the tongues declare

The one discharge from sin and error.

— T.S. Eliot, Four Quartets,

“Little Gidding,” section IV

 

 

If I came this way, the dead

brother would lead me by the

hand to the hut of our parents,

comfortable at last in the rough

dust and ash smell and mouse

movement along the wall, a

still point.

 

If I came this way, he would

take me by the hand and seat

me at the scarred-wood table

across from our father, our

mother to my left, he on my

right, before a meal of peanut

butter and jelly sandwiches on

day-old white bread with glasses

of milk, half powdered with water

and half from the icebox gallon.

 

My jacket pocket would hold a

spotless invitation to a wedding

feast if I came this way, a

many-turn journey along city

main roads and rural highways.

 

If I came this way, I would hear

the bird-talk in our mother’s

speech, hear the sun over dawn

mountain in our father’s voice,

hear my brother’s fist grip ease,

a conversation in which I would

insect-climb the wall to show I

could do it and was proud to do

it and how did they like that?

 

If I came this way, I would be

wordless in the expanse of my

naked skin. I would follow fatted

cattle and skittish chickens and

barn rats, mud sows, the birds of

the air if I came this way.

 

Let the trombones wail if I come

this way. Let the car horns sing!

 

If I came this way, I would be a

woman with no shame, a man

without worthlessness, a shoulder

touch, a cockroach treasured by

a four-year-old, not yet taught.

 

I would arrive with the lost

tribes if I came this way. I would

be among the grit refugees, amid

a raucous crowd of sinner-saints,

vast horde of failures, one and

all, bad and good alike, in the

embrace that all manner of thing

shall be well.

 

I would come, holding my

brother’s hand, to the empty

auditorium, empty of side altars,

empty of tabernacles, empty of

angels and archangels, prophets

and sibylline seers, would kiss the

relic woven into the white fabric

on the podium and speak longingly,

endearingly, to the ceiling stain in

the shape of a galaxy on the far

back wall above no rose window.

 

Let Michael lector the Prayer of

Aliens in a voice to shake the

earth and quake the sky from

Chile to Manitoba to Niger to

Saint Petersburg, if I come this way.

 

If I came this way, the still hut

would be enough. My brother and

those two would be cows in the

pasture, sparrows in the branches.

They would be well-soiled seeds in a

vast green field, covered with lilies.

They would pleasure in sunlight on

their once-fearful cheeks.

 

For me, the placid hut would not be

enough if I came this way. I would go

home by another path, after listening

to a mouse scratch out its scripture

if I came this way.

 

I would find, if I came this way, the

spider-web of soil, air, fire and pain.

If I came this way, I would find the

still point in the darkness outside, in

the sound of teeth, in the Incarnation

feet and hands.

 

Patrick T. Reardon

12.10.24

This poem originally appeared in the 1922 Review on 11.20.24.