Being driven through forests
of New Hampshire, on the way to give
a seminar and a reading
at a venue close to the sea,
the driver slowed his Lincoln
town car—empire carriage
of visiting dignitaries—and said:
‘through those trees, through
the wonderful New Hampshire fall,
slice of rainbow
spread like hope against
coming winter weather,
blanket of colour we walk upon,
my home and home to generations
of my maple-tending family,
is the Patriot Missile factory,
where my brothers and sisters
and cousins do their duty
and supplement their income…’.
Unsure of what to say, I proffer:
‘I see…these woods
are as beautiful as any
I have seen…you wouldn’t think
they held a weapons factory’.
‘We don’t see them as weapons
per se,’ he said, ‘but extensions
of the trees with leaves
turning orange and red,
eructing to life before falling
gently to the ground,
their mission complete…’.
I looked for irony in the eyes
of the coachman
as he studied me in his mirror.
There was none. Just a form
of bliss, a spent tranquillity
like the semi-calm after sex,
or the face a father makes
after the birth of the son he’s
craved for but said nothing,
prepared to love a daughter
just as well while thinking:
‘we can always try again’.