Night Singer: The Collected Poems of Frank D. Moore

A selection of poems

THE NEED TO SING
After news of radiation from Chernobyl
and the silence in our living room,
we sit under the dome of the gazebo,
where the resonant frequency
resembles F on the flute.
I always want to hear how tea pours,
the plash, the first bubbles in the empty cup,
and watch the steam rise.
We sip, the pines stir,
purple irises tap against wood,
a mockingbird imitates titmouse and phoebe.
Someone has re-entered the house;
on the turntable, a trumpet,
pure as the edge of a knife,
Handel’s “Eternal Source of Light Divine,”
and a soprano begins to sing.
Suddenly I remember a void in Annie Hall
and the emerging face of Diane Keaton:
color of peaches, framed with long brown hair.
She begins to sing to a piano,
which we cannot see. The first notes
come when the two lovers kiss:
music emanates from their bodies,
bridges the darkness between the two scenes.
“Seems like old times, having you to walk with.”
The voice wobbles, rises up over a memory
of tears, swells in timbre,
until it is of a sweetness almost insupportable,
like a craving for strawberries, or sex.
“Seems like old times, having you to talk with.”
As long as she sings, we can look
at the darkness around her: room with no walls,
dim light touching the heads of her listeners,
who do not know they fear the end of the music,
or the slight pause before the next scene,
if there is a next scene,
or song.

---

NIGHT SINGER
In a farmhouse in Appalachian Kentucky
only I rise up out of a featherbed to witness you
as your song begins in the high backwoods
then slowly comes down through the pines
past the graveyard with faceless stones,
past the swamp, frogs hushing as you pass,
over the corn fields and apple orchard
till you come to the backdoor stoop.
Through the screen door I see
in the moonlight, pale, almost liquid,
the smokehouse, rhubarb leaves
like giant ears at the garden’s edge.
And you, whom I’d always imagined
in mantel and crown, trailing smoke,
just a few grey feathers on thin legs
and a throat, swelling over and over again,
“whip-poor-will, whip-poor-will,”
ringing against the tin roof.
Caprimulgus vociferous, blessing
this backyard where at dusk
we lounged in plastic chairs,
drinking beer to the tune of pop-top cans:
first alcohol in ages for Uncle Jim,
tight-lipped mountain fatalism, dis-
solving to quips with each sip,
Aunt Clara cantankerous,
veined purplish legs stretched out in the sun,
Mother smiling because The Family,
what was left of it, was together,
I blissed out, dreaming of money;
blessing the spot where over us all
suddenly stood Will Botner
(looking sidewise at Mother, refusing a brew,
addressing me, age 40, as “Honey”)
and son Millard, both thick as Guernseys.
Butter wouldn’t melt--all that country delay:
“How you?” the weather, who died, who’s
dying. They were pawing the ground
at the thought of our eighty acres
joining the rest of the county
they’d already bought and strip-mined
or planted in marijuana.
(“Botner, Kentucky” would be next,
sign over the one room p.o.), fi-
nally backing away in unison down the yard,
“You all take care going back now, you hear,”
not one hint as to why they came.
While Aunt Clara is snoring the house down,
Mother in her parents’ bed turning over
in an ancient complaint of springs,
please, Bird of backwoods, inhabiter of poems,
teach me to whip poor will,
abide time passing,
sing near graves in the dark.

---

THE RAVENS OF SANTA FE
A blue-black huddle moves
on the pavement, under the red light,
jockeying of feathers.
In my head,
I still see back on the road
chamisa stirring against an adobe wall,
below a windowframe painted the precious
blue of New Mexico sky:
grey-white network of spines,
topped with yellow florets, like sponges bobbing,
joined along a flesh-colored wall
by purple asters “that scarcely breathe
in their beds,” and cosmos,
petals of pale lavender surrounding
steady eyes of gold--
all covered suddenly by
wings too close to earth:
yellow turning to mustard,
purple to black.
The light changes. I inch ahead;
feathers rise up, sheening,
clamor above the car roof.
In the mirror, the line on the road,
the same yellow as chamisa,
leads back to a thing,
shapeless, bright,
red, open.

Back to Night Singer info
Back to Cyndell Press