Читать книгу Still Working It Out - Brad Davis - Страница 11

for JGD

We’ve not seen such rain for months. And maybe

because of the storm, or what fell from the cheek

of a young girl asleep in Malaysia, Charlie Hunter’s

jazzy cover of Marley’s Natty Dread just leapt

onto the cafe’s new stereo. Here on the fat edge

of this window counter, as I relish having scored

a parking space within steps of my weekly coffee stop,

I elect to consider a notion I’ve heard for decades,

that it’s better to enter heaven minus sinful parts

than be thrown undivided into hell. I get a picture

I don’t like of me standing at that threshold, various

limbs, organs, glands tagged, “Property of Hell,”

and suddenly I’m aware that neither the prospect

of gaining heaven whole nor the anticipation of shame

at having given hell even the slightest satisfaction

has proved sufficient to effect the good result.

Sure, I’d like to be pure in heart; I’d like to see God,

but these days I’m trying to be kinder to my body.

Besides, tonight after his lesson at Longy, my son and I

are on to hang around the square and, after burritos,

settle ourselves at a front table in a hotel jazz club

to witness firsthand Charlie Hunter’s eight-string magic.

I’m holding two tickets for the ten o’clock show,

and if the radio weather man’s on target, by the time we

hit the road home this rain should be well out to sea.