Believer, and: He Thinks of Windows, and: Gaudete

Abstract

Believer, and: He Thinks of Windows, and: Gaudete Fred Johnston (bio) Believer for my uncle Robert In motorcycle and sidecar, rattling like a blown flag,he lugged my cousins and aunt to the shores of the Baltic,returned with a tan of satisfaction and preachedthat we had it wrong, life was good there, the West was dead: The Wall down and the rest with it, he aged like doctrinairethought in a house no bigger than a cell, read the Bibleand took the Good News to anyone who'd listen, wrote meanxious letters in Wesleyan syntax, lived without newspapers: The Lord, he said, would provide—when he smacked his lipsyou could hear, if you listened with an open mind, waveslapping the red sands of the Baltic beach, impish children,now grown and godless, flattening sandcastles out of spite. [End Page 182] He Thinks of Windows Sun stancu de baláDe rid'e de giugá. —Paulette Cherici-Porello, E Viva Sciaratu—(Monégasque) He thinks of windows flying in blue heatA room that flies, the sound and breath of a wing Beating in the tremulous air, coffee sweetAnd first-thing,Sipped standing on his own terrace in bare feet. From the 'bus that stops, it seems, for everyoneHe has a view of a sea without end. A gate, A plate left out on a garden wall, white sunLightly powderingA sky as brutal and unnerving as a gun. He has photographed the silly flap of palms,And tasted something local, meaty, hot, Played at spotting girls like lovely psalmsThat rolled along the eye,Line on line, languid as traffic jams. He saw the great battalions of his thoughtRoll dead in ditches, slaughtered by the heart. He was himself and himself distraught,(And now the 'bus drifts off), as ifSome barefoot god had split him With a promise or a gift: or worse, Thrown him a purse of hope That he'd seen fall, but hadn't caught. [End Page 183] Gaudete For all those in Galway city who proteststill against the U.S. military presenceat Shannon airport, and the use of Shannonas a refueling stop for rendition flights As we are guided by our heart's starand lie opposed under the mind's mid-winterin ambush in the dark of the dead word,let us praise the harried tentthe young girls blowing on their handswarming the human under the iron enginesof aircraft bellied with shackled menand men stirring in their guns,let us thank the blind trees for their whisperand the yellow lights of police-loud roadsfor their oppositions; let us make a firein the currents of dumb air, wherethe least hymn finds a chorus in the grass—around the animal roar of aircraftlet a constellation of prayers lay itself outlike a map of possibilitiesand the proud girl afraid and the boy afraidstill stand there where the officeof the harsh unvoted law is read aloudfrom ash-grey pages—and ash on our heads—both of them reciting to the breathingof aviation fuel over and over,an untranslatable, every-tongued syllable of hope. [End Page 184] Fred Johnston Fred Johnston is a reviewer, novelist, and poet. His most recent collection of stories, Orangeman, was published in French translation. He is the founder of "Cúirt," Galway's annual literature festival, and founder and director of the Western Writers' Centre. Copyright © 2011 University of Nebraska Press