This rain may mute
the full moon tonight,
may turn my thoughts to wet
brain, incurable
delusion, doubt, immobility.
I cannot blame
those clouds or any weather
pattern for this disease
of selfish, vicious obsession. It fights
back by sitting in wait
to rot my body—power
greater than myself. I won’t decay
today, will walk into spitting
wind to become present
inside a drop of cannot know.
She believes the dirt
can talk, trees and wind join in—this nonverbal
world says more to her
than the one she keeps trying to define
and confine herself to. Poetry
of numbers in vibration is
music. She sees the face
of a god over Big Sur cliffs—sand mixed in.
When her grandfather paid her
a nickel for each half
hour she could sit still
and mute
neither could know how
her father’s words would evaporate
into close Jersey shore air
for free, how the other capital A
disease untreated might do the same
to a friend she can’t bear to be near—
and stillness becomes
permanent. Even if
she kept those nickels
all these years, she couldn’t purchase
a reprieve
from either for anyone.
The Mississippi River is a poem.
I slip through city pores
to its west then south then west
bank. It will not be shaped
by coordinates. Will not lay down easy
for measurement.
How to become plum with a poem is
a gritty quest with a solution that won’t be fixed.
Warning: Sentimentality Ahead
In honor of the 15th anniversary of Trace’s official release today, I decided to listen to the entire album while walking along the West Bank of the Mississippi River. I walked from downtown Minneapolis to the river and along the pedestrian path—which hovers between the river and the Great River Road (Highway 61)—to the Broadway Bridge in the time it takes to listen to all the songs through “Too Early.” “Mystifies Me” played as I turned back and started heading south. I did make a brief detour on a trail that loops to the water’s edge for “Out of the Picture.” With the band members residing all along the Mississippi River at the time the album was recorded, from the Minneapolis area to the Saint Louis area to (temporarily) New Orleans, I have always associated the album with the river.
Trace may have been released 15 years ago today, but I’ll never forget hearing the songs for the first time on a leaked tape cassette that was circulating in early 1995 and the first time I saw the band play at the 7th Street Entry on a warm June night. I stood in the front row and have done my best to maintain that position ever since. When I listen to those songs, I feel as if they’ve been around my whole life. “Sounds like 1963” indeed. Isn’t that the definition of classic?
No collection of songs has had such a presence in my life. I believe that generations down the road, or up the river, will listen to Trace (on whatever contraption is prevalent at the time) and become just as enchanted with the songs’ beauty, sadness, grit, and wisdom. Trace is a best friend, a classic, a poem, a prayer. And “the rhythm of the river will remain.”
Don’t draw a line through
this day yet—late
afternoon and still sleeves
are optional, blinding light
from the sun’s reflection
on a fender, her footsteps
reflect nothing but promise
of a moon sighting tonight.
A young man in a loud
print shirt, baggy shorts, flip
flops, makes
a balance beam
from a track rail. Records
a freight train’s flight
through the station
to replay and give false hope to future
passengers dodging bats
passing under the eaves. Lights
from boats on moonlight
excursions and the Harbor
Bar across the channel
on the island with no name
transform the river
into a stage. Others wait
to travel west:
White Fish, Montana,
Portland, Oregon,
Chico, California,
eventually. For me, the waiting
will be longer than the journey home.
“Soaked in the blood and black of thousands of dead bugs. We smelled our clothes deeply.”
—Jack Kerouac, On the Road
What color
is your blood, she asks
her grandmother instinctively.
The answer comes on strong
as a tall shot
of Polish vodka: black. Absence
or all wavelengths of light,
it’s so hard to tell
in this reflection against skin.
Suddenly evening crowds
the street—a quickened
descent—September
acceleration
into darkness cooling
and smiling upward—there
moon, there moon.
Vital signs appear in all directions—here
the universal symbol
for no longer choking. The color blue
has turned green
as mature redwood leaves
modest in their fog shroud.
She remembers how
to read them only when she steals
a moment from leaf litter beds
to refocus her mind
on what her eyes have been fixing
all along—this figure eight.
Night & Day Poems of Amy Nash 