In honor of Steven Ratiner.
We’re chatting at a banquet
In a hall fed by many doorways
And which guest entered through each is beyond recall
Standing between the mirrors, our endlessness is on display
Advice is aired—
Imbibe the properties of grace
Verses are happier coaxed than marshaled
Embrace the loon’s lament at sunset
Or the harmonies from the vagrant tongue’s mouth harp
Old-timers can tell you
There’s little profit in
Troweling a winter-furled turf
Keep the ducts of lactation open
Even more than of salt water
Take a breath,
For occasionally you must pause
But if a grand lesson emerges, it is this:
Those things of which we cannot speak,
We yet can whisper, wail, incant, and sing.
Andy Oram
October 6, 2022