East Ironbound

I.

It is not unreachable

Wherever you think you are starting from
however far you think you have to go

whether you trust in your craft and your instruments

or would like to set out in a little round boat
to depend on the will of the wind or the gods
or simply because you were there at the auction
and had change in your pocket, and thought
"How curious, to have died in a curragh"


II.

It is not a fake period village in a park of amusements
where you pay for 'the time of your life'.
Here admission is subtle — the gates thrown wide for everyone.
Here the crippled must enter the weight-lifting trials,
the deaf must discern the approach of the nightowl
before being carried away in its claws,
the dumb serve as traffic controllers at Newark and Heathrow
and the blind have as long to complete their first landscape
as it takes to fall down

down and down

from the plane


III.

It is not undesirable, though it can seem excessive

Including the skin, for example, when shaving the leg hair or beard
might result in the loss of a client, a family's wholesale disapproval,
an aversion to mirrors, not to speak of the shock of the unshielded nerves —
the slightest chill evokes tears

Even worse, should we take to the feel or the look
we might want to go further, cut deeper
make such an abominable mess
only the sky could take pity and not look away

Only the sky, the compassionate sky, by not looking away
could let us see ourselves
reflected in its eye
in an entirely new way


IV.

Looking out from East Ironbound
the trip in seems a dream

the sickening pounding
the seams working
the pump on all the time
the gap in the granite so long in appearing

DOES THE CHART HAVE IT WRONG
DO WE HAVE THE WRONG CHART

Now looking out, it rather seems
as if we'd been here all along

as if the voyage were the myth
and not East Ironbound

— Jim Lindsey
15 January 2003