Toast

To bad translations of Rilke that made us fall in love with Rilke

To fountain pens I don't know how to use and soap that slips through my fingers

Clumsy fingers that nevertheless manage to fold the omelette

And figure out all by themselves the fingering to a scale



To amateur talent shows with their unexceptional beauties

To the twenty-thousand breaths of a day and other pointless calculations

Let us not redact or renege, refute or renegotiate

The warmth of April evenings or the taste of a pear

***

To walking bass lines and shaving brushes

The pathos of ear-wax and small misplaced objects

And pepper-mills two feet tall!


***

To "the winds of March that made my heart a dancer"

To "the cold and rook-delighting heaven"

To "young cherry trees secured against hares"

To "precious friends hid in death's dateless night"

***


To Belle Lettres (whatever they are!)

To the literati and their harmless pretentions

To kitsch and schlock, and their countless cousins

To exclamation points and other signs of unearned exuberance

Everything we were taught to hate by the snobs of yesteryear

But also to you, the despisers of sentimentality

Hard-nosed artisans of the word who know how things are supposed to be said and done

***

We will toast to "Lulu's back in town"

But not to small resentments and sore throats

Tell me what else you would like me to include and I will go on longer




***

To cast iron and batting cages, to everything percussive and pure--

Nothing half-assed, half-cocked, half-baked,

Nothing out of kilter, out of whack, off center,

Nothing under the weather, under advisement, under review.

There is a time for murkiness, another season for fussy nuance

But now we must dance to a broad, comfortable beat