Poetry

Voyager
Jeff Knight

In 1610, the British playwright William Shakespeare saw his theatre, the Globe, shut
down by another London outbreak of the plague. That same year a mathematician-turned-
astronomer named Galileo was looking past our globe, as he became the first human to
observe the moons of Jupiter and the phases of Venus.

By 1977 (the year Obi-wan Kenobe helped Luke Skywalker take a first step into a larger
world), our little planet was taking its own (baby) step toward the city limits of this nine-
horse (Podunk) solar system, launching two spacecraft-Voyagers One and Two-on a
mission not only of scientific exploration, but also of human affirmation.

The word "voyager" derives from a Latin word for traveling money and the name fits, for
these craft carried with them the treasure of who we are. Hoping to contact other
civilizations, a group of scientists led by Carl Sagan sent images (fallen leaves, the Taj
Mahal, a dog), and also sounds (greetings in many languages, birdsong, a mother
soothing a crying baby) just to say: this is who we are. Who are you? 

And we sent music: Bach, Navajo chants, Johnny B. Goode . . .My uncle said at the time
that someday there'll come an intergalactic postcard saying "send more Chuck Berry."

These days, the two craft have Pluto in the rearview mirror. They're seven billion miles
from earth and counting at 38,000 mph, and the 8-year-old boy who sent our planet's one
greeting in English-"Hello, from the children of Earth"-well, that kid's 33, and I wonder
what his life is like, this spokesman for us all.

If all goes well, the craft might reach another planetary system in 40,000 years, give or
take. And I am in awe of the capacity for hope that led us, against all odds, to toss this
message-in-a-bottle into what Sagan called the cosmic ocean. But that's not what I
wanted to talk about.

I wanted to talk about finding the hope to survive my own plagues, to move beyond the
limits of my own globe, to take my own step into a larger world, and, even when it's
hard, and even if it takes a long time, to reach into my pocket and offer up the things of
value I carry with me, these words that are the coin of my life, and say, beyond any
(reasonable) expectation of being understood or answered:

this is who I am. 

Who are you? 

Cut
Jeff Knight

Hollow as a dream 
or a drum, curiosity 
pares the green apple
of morning 
in one twirling 
scrap of peel.

Bite into it like a lucky pauper. 

Streaks Appearing Now
Jeff Knight

Walking a road. The windows of houses
stare out flat as if to ask a question.
Willowy and explosive as the whims
and passions of thick grass and wrecked forest,
fear vines into the chest until one must
sneak off like love or daylight, a pocket
mouse, a meadow vole. There is a sutra
that says owls are reborn as wayward men.
Wires are humming above one's cadent steps
on spongy asphalt. Late summer softens.
The road and the sky decline inquiry.
Heavy-lidded, they change the subject back
to the sharp screak and skitter of nightfall.

Fine Scar Fugue
Jeff Knight

High harmonies like fingernails on a blackbird, and
they're mining feathers down at the quarry,
slick fistfuls of 'em chipping out hard from earthen veins, stone.
A whirr rising like the sear of hot mustard,
Abraham Lincoln's helicopter forever hovering above the White House lawn,
rotors still roaring after all these years.
Most of what I said about the quarry was true, plus
the feathers smell like sawdust,
just ask anybody.
Eighty-six the high harmonies
and all you've got left is a naked bird falling,
Eventually everything stops falling,
but nothing stops falling apart, I mean
points and plugs, rods and reels, rods and cones, reels and jigs, and
a sandpapery glowering at
the sonic boom of vision glows till
one of those notes is bound to hit the corner
pocket, feet planted on helium firma, 
and just look at these tricky skies of autumn
stretching across acres of sweating men
and smoke-spewing machines mining feathers,
penny a bushel.