L.R. Harvey Poetry

Red Door, Rock City Garden of Lights                       December 27, 2019 I didn’t mean to have you bump against my back, lady in the light-up hat, it's just that surely on the other side the poems work , the words are opened wide and spill their colors on a canvas known  to need some softer hues, and a child on  a bicycle is quoting Wilbur’s “A World Without Objects is a Sensible Emptiness.”  It was not my intent for you to spill  your cocoa, but I would wager all  my teacher’s salary that through that arch  it’s all been taught, and there is time to start pursuing answers to the bigger questions:  Fresh-picked strawberries or watermelon?  Lemonade on ice? A slice of cake? And now you’re mumbling something, breathy, like  the morning breeze that surely stirs the flowers in the window-boxes, sunlight pure and yellow, the doors all freshly painted bright— but it would not be in the holiday spirit to hold you any longer,

Choosing Presence On Monday I will wake up, pour myself a mug, read a page or two before I realize the time. The towel on the shelf will dance just out of reach—I’ll wet the floor then dress despite the shower-sweats. Dawn-light will tango with the kitchen dust, and I  will think about my lesson plan, find the shirt to match the pants, tie the tie a few times, guessing length. And it will be a Holy-Day, a Sabbath—i f I will rest  in presence, dine the utter mystery  of Mondays, worship shower-sweats and dust and other fragments of a truth too whole  to hold complete, behold in full—if I  will dig and deeper-delve the layered loam  of being.

Locked Water heater, closet full of boxes full of catalogues, closet full  of dusty snow-coats hoping for  a chance, a tiled bathroom floor.  "So many doors, but I can't open them.”  He says it like a fact, that since his mother told him no, then no,  that basements aren’t for those  in dinosaur pajamas pants.   I close my book, glance  up to say, Just open them , or, Just trust her , and both seem wise, so silence—  hanging in the balance, we stare. The doors hold close their hands, and wait.

The Joke Head back, his laughter comes from someplace deep, where joy is tangible as Tonka trucks.  His mother leans in close—stops—keeps the stillness taut, the moment somewhere stuck  in incarnation, waiting on the word: “ You need to take a shower!” Seventh time hits better than the others. His laughter’s sure,  but what is not is whether the joke is in  delivery or in the fact that she  suggests that soap and water could make us clean.

morning-sickness              December 25, 2019 A virgin vomits in the dust outside her tent in Nazareth. The air is still, morning mist dew-cold along her naked forearms. Glance up with her—the sky is big and you are not, and somehow grace is thicker than the bread-crumbs slick with spit now pooling at her feet. Listen closely— you’ll hear it between verse 1 and 2 of Silent Night, when the congregation flips the bulletin and fills the sanctuary with the sound of raindrops                      on the dome of heaven.

to George MacDonald and all who never learned Our feet descended from couch to spattered carpet. How quickly the world lost its rhythm—we learned,  while young, the movie-magic dissipates. We tasted it in quests, in castles of our own  behind the house— real life— but even then the call for lunch reminded us our swords  were crooked sticks.                             If only we could find  a way to trap it in, we told ourselves,  to keep the world airy, golden, full of tinker-dust, but Mrs. Maela’s class  had lots of dust and homework, very few  live faeries, so we lowered our expectations as we grew upwards out of Costco jeans.     These days, we drink from Yeti travel mugs that promise to hold the heat—but we have learned, were taught, the magic doesn’t last, that coffee with the rest will go lukewarm. So here's to those who somehow never learned.

Backstage I’ve hurled a stone or two at slender pine- trees, my boyhood worth determinate on hearing the throaty pop of pebble on wooden spine.  The rocks that looked like arrow-heads, edging  along the corner of the gravel path, were best—a pointer-knuckle hooked around the edge, a calloused thumb for the backstage task  of balance. At twelve I learned the beauty in supporting roles:  the thumb around the smooth- edge of the rock, the sapling wedged between the crowded boughs, the brown-eyed boy on the path  who picks a hand-sized stone to cock and fling,  cracking against the tree, adding a note  to the world's symphony                   it cannot do without.      

The eyes over my shoulder are reminding me to remember who you are .   Y ou used to wear  burnt-orange Nike shorts with a blood-red zip- up jacket, so who are you, trying to pair  up words with words, images with truth? A hopeless shaper. But maybe, once, I’ll say  a thing a different way, rearrange  the world in a pattern fresh as day- light on this breakfast plate.                                              How strange,  the way you convince yourself that in this coffee shop bursting at the seams with muffin-minds  as soft as yours, that with a ball-point missing its cap, you could shape the world.      Perhaps with time.  And do you have a pocketful of that to toss on to a notebook page, scratch out, then toss again again again in gambler-hopes you’ll roll a lucky 8? The man who doesn’t know when to stop is called a fool .                                       Then I’m a

the light-up model country church Surely inside  the minister has pressed his Christmas khakis and the impact of  the virgin birth. Bill Jones imagines what  a world redeemed would look like: corn above his head, round beats as purple as a king’s cloak, and perhaps the birds won’t peck. The pews are full, the children sucking candy canes  imagining the shepherds, humming tunes  beneath their breath from last night’s Christmas play.  Surely there’s candlelight around the table of  the sacrament,                                              and in the back a boy  who’s staring at the nativity carved from maple wood, set up beneath the tree behind the pastor, imagining a place of wood and hay and angel song where he  is sitting beside a manger—                                          and surely the hay is fresh.