LET ME SEE IF I CAN SAY IT FOR MYSELF

 

LET ME SEE IF I CAN SAY IT FOR MYSELF

My country is in crisis and so am I.

Blessed by family, I am surrounded by books and art.

Karen and I have known each other for 60 years.

You met her in the anniversary poem.

Sit with us at table. My son-in-law

made the Gathering sign

and the crosses come from El Salvador,

the ones over this table.

Of the twenty-two sermons in the book,

This World and Beyond, I have written them

into 12 sections. Why 12? There are 12 apostles,

yes. But there are more than 12 apostles

inside these pages. There are 12 steps

in the Alcoholics Anonymous program,

too, aren’t there. There are. And there

are more than 12 alcoholics inside

these pages, too. The poet Lucille Clifton,

who is here, was born with 12 toes.

Twenty-two sermons, 12 sections.

More than one world, too.

May my prayers for these pages

include 22 petitions and one prayer

for each of the 12 sermons.

But there are 22 sermons.

Correct. There are 22 sermons.

There are grandchildren, too.

Beautiful children, children

also in crisis. My grandchildren.

There are poems for the grandchildren here.

The poems for the grandchildren

show them in their beauty,

in the before of what’s coming.

Not all of them are mine.

None of the grandchildren are mine.

All of the grandchildren are here.

Not all of the poems for grandchildren are here.

All of the grandchildren, none of the grandchildren.

This is the part that I can say, Let the poems be written.

This is the part where what can be said

and what can’t be said is said like this.

When you meet Josh you meet them all.

When you meet Samantha you meet them all.

When you meet Deanna you meet them all.

You meet them all when you meet Katie.

Some of this is about saying what can’t be said.

It is beyond my understanding to contemplate

a world of children who do not have poems

written for them. It is that simple.

The man who wrote these twenty-two sermons

during the years 1936-1950, Rudolf Bultmann,

found a way through crisis. That this book

has come into my hands at this time,

is a blessing for one such as me,

one who was given the beyond

as a country boy at a young age.

A man living in crisis, a crisis

he didn’t always recognize.

A man who knew he could never

get there on his own.

A man whose country is in crisis.

And all these children. All of these

grandchildren. They’re all his.

None of them are his.