THE COUNTER


Out here they hired a man to count the stars,
a holy ghost with rainstickfigure arms
brought from Boston's famous numbers school.
The country called the Counter to a dual.
All heaven's bodies are now property of state, they said.
We need them numbered, Mr. Counter, right away.
So he fetched his special pen,
he sent for an abacus,
procured a french curve from the grocery,
and gave his faculties a test.
Thirteen oranges, seven pears,
two spills in aisle two,
four children cry eleven tears
all in a single room.
But when he looked into the eyes of outer space
something within the counter must have changed.
All future seemed a vulture of a lie
drawing circles black and hollow in its sky.
Sure as morning ferments duly into day,
his ivy ego'd gone without a trace.
Gone and in its place a smart despair.
Gone and in its place a vacant stare.
Nothing means a thing.
Life's a phone that never rings.
It's all meaningless and empty and unfair.
He rushed to tell the country,
and rushed to tell his wife.
He rushed to warn his little girl,
his baby bird of paradise,
that god ate up the animal in man,
pointed to visions of a promise near at hand,
and on the double we were enraptured of the land.
Til religion ate up god.
And science ate up religion.
And culture ate up science.
And commerce ate up culture ate up compassion ate up friendship.
Then music came to try to lead the way.
To try to make some sense of every day.
It drew pictures in my head,
put its sounds inside my tongue,
and for the first since god was god we felt okay.
While computers chew on television screens,
and no one dare say anything they mean,
music offered hope of some reprieve.
Music made a promise
that it could almost keep.
Except there's not a single sound
deep in outer space.
There isn't anything but empty lightyears
silent as the grave.
But his lady wouldn't listen.
She tells her friends he works too much.
And the country asked if he could hold,
he said yes and then hung up.
And now that it was very nearly dawn.
and the twilight swept the stars under the lawn,
his baby girl was sleeping like a lamb.
To tell her now, he thought, would just be wrong.
But just then she opened up her baby eyes,
and he saw in them something to his surprise.
The sun had poked over the hill,
and her eyes had caught the light,
and he saw in them the very stars
he'd counted earlier that night.




DAS - Springfield, Missouri, USA