Vigilance

 

 A father is a night-watch, a patrolman — not every night, perhaps, but fairly often. Probably one got that way early on in parenthood when the babies were small and woke up wailing. And there are always the unusual noises as for instance when the burglar has broken in and your wife asks you in a hissy whisper to go investigate. The burglar has probably managed to abscond by the time you get to the living room; fortunately he has not managed to steal anything.

Then there are the times when, later on, you lie awake listening for your teen-age daughter or son (particularly daughter) to get home from a late date.

 

Listen to Lewis Turco read his poem Vigilance

 

         You stand waiting.  You listen.

         At your back the house is still,

   between the tickings of clocks and timbers.

      Beneath the rough soles of your feet

you can feel the cellar stretching to its foundations —

   silence in the stone, the furnace brooding.

 

         Shades are partly drawn against

         the night.  The panes are harder

   than ice and as cold.  Were you to touch them

      they would shatter or seal you in.

The scent of dust is scattered in the air.  The breathing

   of the stairwell is a deep cascade.  Now.

 

         It will happen now:  The knob

         will turn, the tooth of the lock

   take a strain in the cheek of the door where

      it is set.  You do not ask, “Who

is it?”  It makes no mind; it is the wind of autumn,

   the winterchase, the sky of change.  The hours

 

         flatten on the walls where you

         have pinned them; you sense their weight

   dragging in their frames against the wire.

      A flake of plaster sifts onto

the carpet stretching like a lane of leaves along the

   hall.  You listen to the respiring rooms

 

 

         where youth is dreaming age, where

         aging sleeps.  And you patrol,

   you walk the hours listening to nibs scraping,

      paper rattling, clocks marking.  You

watch the knobs revolve, the windows shake, and in the flue

   you hear the cinders rustling to the grate.

 

Fearful Pleasures: The Complete Poems of Lewis Turco 1959-2007, www.StarCloudPress.com, 2007, ISBN 978-1-932842-19-5, jacketed cloth, $49.95; ISBN 978-1-932842-20-3, trade paperback, $32.95, 640 pages. ORDER FROM AMAZON.COM.