Joe Barbato

Kyle’s snake
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Hil stopped by for dinner last night so she and Matthew could talk to us about possible summer plans. Bouncing around the table: A return to Nicaragua, but pick a different city and a different activity. Matt wonít again sit for four hours a day of Spanish lessons. Guatemala, but it is safe? Colombia, but would they return home alive?

Knocked from the list: Costa Rica and Mexico – too ordinary, too safe. South America? Who knows anything about those countries? If they go somewhere, everyone, even Matthew agrees that they should have structure, as in community service, etc. . Preferred by the ërents and maybe even the deal breaker, known contacts in the area.

Anyone out there with ideas?

Untitled

Fingerprints look like ripples
because time keeps dropping
another stone into our palm.

From the review of The Unsubscriber in Poetry, the magazine Adam and Tricia gave me for my last birthday.

The Unsubscriber is Knottís first new collection in a decade, and it is something of an event, in part because Farrar, Straus and Giroux – home to Noble Prize-winning Derek Walcott and Pulitzer-winning, John Ashbery, as well as many distinguished others – is publishing it. And a good thing, too, because, as it turns out, Knott is an underrated, or at least an under-read, poet. To be sure, he is also plenty capable of bad – not to mention offensively grotesque – poetry, of a sort that is more unsettling than the average tediously bad poem. But his talent is a kind of live wire: no one, least of all the poet himself, seems to be able to get a consistently steadying hand on it, and if the result is sometimes appalling, it can also make for a kind of terrifying beauty.

ìDo you have children?î

ìI have three. I had three. My son, Rajiv, died when he was a young boy.î

While I stood outside talking to Adam on my cell phone, Maya set a place for me at her kitchen table. I walked back inside to see ìsomething before you begin workî: a mug of spicy Indian tea, a paper cup of water, two round, tan-colored chappathis, two cookies, and a handful of pistachio nuts. She stood some distance away on the other side of the kitchen, and when she told me about Rajiv she looked away, as if into another room.

Later, I walked to where she had glanced and on the kitchen counter was a small shrine . Inside an open cabinet that would normally hide a blender or a toaster was a photo of her son at about four: round face, dark brown eyes, hair cut short, and a smile perhaps coaxed by an adoring mother standing behind the photographer. On narrow shelves above and below his photo were carelfully set Hindi religious objects.

ìWhat God gives, God takes away.î

Maya seemed equally at ease talking about her son as sitting in her worship room with the sun streaming through the skylight two stories above. She wore a red sari, the same color as her third eye dot, with a flowery pattern sewn into the hem. Her white sandles were either on or off depending on which room she entered. She told me sheíd moved to Weston thirty-six years ago and that her eldest daughter had married after graduating from Northwestern.

ìI didnít think Hindus believed in such a God. That sounds very Christian.î

ìWe believe in God, one God, and that we are all a small part of God. All religions are the same. The Jews have a saying, ìWhat goes around, comes around… .î

ìReincarnation?î

ìYes. We believe we have eighty-four incarnations and what you donít learn in one lifetime you learn in another.î

ìBut your son…it must have been rough.î

ìIt was very rough for three or four years, but when my second daughter was born I realized it was okay. And my aunt-in-law told me that if I love my son, I have to let him go. That my holding on would make him unhappy.î

ìEasy for others to say. But you were ready to let go after those years of suffering?î

ìI was, and I watched my husband. Heís so strong and he, better than I , accepted what was happening.î

ìYou must have gotten much closer then.î

ìWe did. We were not close before that. I hate to say it, but we werenít. It was an arranged marriage… ì

ìOf course.î

ì…but not forced.î

ìYouíve accepted your sonís passing… ì

ìIt still hurts. Now and then it catches me when Iím not aware.î

ìDid you talk to him at the end?î

ìOh yes. He knew more than we did. His doctor said Rajiv had the brain of a sixteen year old, though he was only ten. The doctor told his other patients they should be like my son.î

ìWere you able to say goodbye?í

ìNo. I couldnít .. .î

ìYou…î

ìI couldnít face the reality. You know he would have thirty-five this year.î

Betty toils behind the counter at my local lumberyard. She is short and slim, has brown hair and a childlike Betty Boop sounding voice, which is odd coming from a woman who must be in her mid-forties. Her voice makes me want to go home and watch cartoons.

I placed a quart of ceiling paint on the counter.

ìAnything else you need?î

ìNo, thatís it. And I see you are bundled up again.î I looked around and she was the only one wearing more than a long sleeved shirt. Even teardrop-shaped Al who often wears sweaters sported only pin stripes.

ìNo blood.î

ìNo what?î

ìNo blood. I am always cold and growing up my Swedish grandparents told me I didnít have enough blood.î

ìAnd your parents… ?î

ìMy mother died when I was four and my father was no good. I plopped into my grandparents’ lives when I was four and they were about fifty.î

ìI lived next to a couple who raised their two granddaughters after the girls’ parents were killed in an auto accident. The grandmother lived forever, but not so for the grandfather.î

ìMine lived into their eighties and they died a month apart.î

ëThat must have been awful. I mean, they were your parents,really.î

ìIt was and they were. I was in my thirties then.î

Betty turned away to retrieve my printed sales receipt. I could see another salesman, David, who could play a perfect mall Santa Claus, sitting behind his desk, listening. Betty returned.

ìAnd they thought you needed more blood?î

ìI was hungry all the time. Iíd eat all day and my growling stomach would wake me at night for another meal. And I couldnít stay warm. When they cooked a roast beef they would pour the blood and the fat from the bottom of the pan into a glass and make me drink it.î

ìThat sounds delicious.î

ìIt was terrible, especially the fat. I drank it from nine until about twelve, but as a teenager, they couldnít make me drink it.î

ìItís funny, isnít it? The stuff that gets handed down. In extreme climates like the arctic that fat would be good for you.î

ìNow I just wear a sweater.î

Last year, Matthew is in his web design class and while he is listening to his teacher heís also surfing the net. He stumbles on someoneís home site with links to music and photos. Matt clicks on ìPeople I know and You Donít, î and standing among folks Matt truly does not know is a year old photo of his web design teacher.

Salvator Rosa
The Spirit of Samuel Called up before Saul by the Witch of Endor, 1668 .
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Philosopher In Meditation, 1632.
Scanned from Paintings In The Louvre by Lawrence Gowling
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Jennifer

My daughter at college was on my mind after the blog about what people have read. (I canít deal with reading any of the recommended reading though.) I was thinking about sharing some of our important early read-alouds: The Wonderful Adventures of Nils, Mary Poppins (the BOOKS, *N*O*T* the movie!), and The Jungle Book. That really has nothing to do with the next part, except that she rarely calls, and then she did.

She didnít want to talk to me, just her sister. Whatever it was, Hilary didnít want to do it; she suggested a friend now at Oberlin; then another relative. Eventually, I got back on the phone. It turned out she needed to fill out her health care proxy form for a class, and she felt parents were too irrational about their kids. I listened. Her: ìI mean, have you seen that woman in Florida? Sheís like a trained seal. 15 years …î Me: ìWait a minute. Remember me? Remember the parrot?î (I had to remind her about the parrot, but she got it. You folks can just look back some days on the blog*) ìSo, mom, have you guys filled out your health care proxy?î (No. So sheíll bring forms home next break.)

And then the conversation with her dad: Me: ìShe needed someone to be her health care proxy.î Him: ìYou know, you have to be careful. She may not feel loved, if you agree to cut off life-support.î ìI had to remind her about the parrot in order to pass.î (I had to remind him about the parrot too. He doesnít read the blog either.)

ìDid you know the parrot at Brandeis is the smartest parrot in the world? Itís been being trained for 25 years, by students.î ìItís the smartest, or it can do the most?î I started thinking, I bet 3 year-olds could learn way more than most of them do, except that they only spend a year being 3. Would that make them smarter?

* Reprinted from an earlier blog post:
“I once went into an exotic pet store with La Chica, age 6ish. She wanted a parrot or something like it. I was relieved that the prices were such that clearly we weren’t going there, but trying to be polite to the salesman. He bragged something along the lines of “They have the intelligence of a three-year-old, and they live to 40.” (My numbers may be off by a factor of 2.) I couldn’t think of a worse fate. Even La Chica seemed daunted. “

For Adam and Tricia.
cartoon
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If you have the time, read the first two articles from the March 24th edition of The New York Review of Books: Very Bad News and Welcome to Doomsday. In Very Bad News, Clifford Geertz reviews two books : Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed by Jared Diamond and Catastrophe: Risk and Response by Richard A. Posner.
ìWhether societies waste away in ecological neglect or are destroyed by foreseeable disasters they have failed to prevent, for both writers vigilance and resolve are the price of survival. Awareness is all. However much they may differ in style and method (and they occupy the poles of the social sciencesódogged, fact-thick empiricism on the one side, model-and-calculate political arithmetic on the other), these are consciousness-raising books, tracts for the time. It is later than we think. Later even than we have thought to think. ì
From Welcome to Doomsday by Bill Moyers : ì There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power.î

ì ‘Sugar.’ You like that, donít you?í

ìYou mean Jeff and Karen?î

ìHey, Sugar.î

ìItís a southern thing, isnít it?î

ìI guess so.î

ìWe say, ‘hon.’ Maybe they think hon is quaint.î

ìWe do say that, donít we?î

ìOften. You use it all the time.î

ìExcept when I say it, Iím thinking h-u-n.î

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Matthew brought Sarah and we had a most unusual MFA experience. The Ralph Lauren Collection of Cars. Cars? Not art? Audio players with Ralph describing at what age he fell in love with which car? ìDad, heís a jackass.î Donít misinterpret, weíre glad we went, but Iím convinced it set the mood for Dianeís comment later as we browsed paintings by Fantin-Latour, Gainsborough,Rembrandt and Nicholas de Largillierre

ìLook at the colors, the perfect brown eyes, the reflection on his armor, the separate strands of hair.î

ìBut who would want to look so goofy , year after year, century after century.î

Afterwards, we made our usual Village Smokehouse dinner stop. Matthew and Sarahís meals were proportioned for normal humans, Diane looked down at her baby back ribs and said, ìI have a pig on my plate.î
One more from the collection.