Promise, a poem

PROMISE

Ceasar Chavez / so and how does this mean that there
is an end or that anything is different? We still
have a promise to keep. We still have work to
do. Our father who art finally away from disaster,
out of the grip of that hand that wants to shape
everything, to twist everything, that hand
that crushes the flowers into a lingering
fragrance, and that thinks to make
men into mud again. I
would like to tell you
that the
children will live. I would like to tell you
that the children will be happy and in love
with life again and in love with themselves.

It is the last promise
I will make.
They will live.
On my blood.

And no hand
will cover their mouths again,
and the air will be clean,
and their eyes will be open,

and their mouths
will be unstuck,
and their ears
unstopped.

I think I can make this promise.
What life would be worth living
unless we make this promise?

You can sleep now.
You can dream now.
But dreaming, you still have work to do:
Will you dream us?

And we will leave the door open
on those hot evenings in the Valley,
and while we sleep, you can always
walk in again. Tim Fitzmaurice 4/27/93
(Cesar Chavez 31 March 1927-23 April 1993)

Owl, a poem

Owl

Screeches in the wood,
but stays near the road
and the street lamps.
Calling me.

It sits unhidden
in the most unprotected places.
It’s a child about these things,
inhabiting the body of an adult.

Its mother is a stranger.
If she hears, she doesn’t listen.
She won’t come back anymore.
It can screech all night long & it does.

So I went to talk to it.
I followed the voice.
I wanted to tell it.
No more handouts.

Brown light brown
with stark white under the wing
and eyes burning like 100 watt bulbs
with crying.

Learn.Learn. Learn.
You are alone. But god made this road
to be your dinner table.
Learn.Learn.

You aren’t the first one
to see the end of a mother
in a thousand years,
and you won’t, I bet, be the last.

It screeched again
unutterably sad
but I did not understand
the word.

The tree was older
than the owl and I
and the road
put together.

It was gray and brittle.
And the branch broke
and the owl fell helplessly
toward my waiting arms.

After tumbling twenty feet
through leaves and branches
from the tree, it caught itself
miraculously

And slowly flapped
an ascension, slowly
taking life
above the cold road.

Its mother must’ve taught it
something about safety
but left out the part
about dead trees.

And pardon me.
I have a son whom I love.
I hope he is listening:
Beware the gray branches.

And if you fall,
flap your lovely wings,
and never fear:
Those are my lonely arms.

Tim Fitzmaurice 1988