Thoughts at Thirty-Thousand Feet

The penny holds out its little promise:

Why boredom? Why bread? Why cereal

without sugar? And so the child discovers

discontent. Who of us can now remember

what we were doing when we first understood

the concept of more? Possibly the child was

sniffing at flowers, or fixing the paw of a sick puppy,

or plunk-plunking his heart out on a toy piano,

when, as if from far away, came the gentle

persuasion of nickel plinking against nickel,

and the child lifted his head and perked up his ears.

Is there any doubt why he.takes that first step?

But how sturdy and persistent are the ears,

the one part of the body to keep growing,

when all the rest stops, forever eager

to entertain any possible new offer.

Think of the oversized ears of the elderly,

like the cross section of a boiled red pepper

as they strain to hear the enticements of lucre.

I imagine this tonight on the plane, surrounded

by my brothers, the soldiers of the dollar,

who sit at rest, their short leashes dangling free

at their necks, the paraphernalia of counting

all stowed away, and their ears, their sad

unlovely ears at last at peace. Perhaps

they will close like flowers, fold up

like the bright faces of sunflowers

till the new day beckons and once more

they pursue their god's triumphant march

across the sky. It seems unlikely.

Even asleep the ears hear the voices

of their temptors whispering More and Not Enough.

Even dead they keep listening and expanding,

STEPHEN DOBYNS

filling their graves as love fills the heart,

and only that fat stone with their names

and dates and those lies about how much

they are missed-only that stone pressing

like a locked door against the earth

to keep the whole mess from exploding.

FREIGHT CARS

Once, taking a train into Chicago

from the west, I saw a message

scrawled on a wall in the railway yard-

Tommy, call home, we need you-

and for years I have worried, imagining

the worst scenarios. Beneath the message

was a number written in red chalk,

although at eighteen who was I to call

and at forty-five who is left to listen?

But Tommy, I think of him still traveling

out in the country, riding freight car

after freight car, just squeaking by

in pursuit of some private quest.

That's the problem, isn't it?

Coming into this world and imagining

some destination for oneself,

some place to make all the rest

all right, as we cast aside those

who love us, as they cast aside others

in their turn, and all of us

wandering, wandering in a direction

which only our vanity claims to be forward,

while the messages fall away like pathetic cries-

come back, call home, we need you.