Old Family Movies.com 

                                  

                          MY MOTHER’S KINDERGARDEN CLASSROOM

                                             Esmond School, Chicago

 

         If you walk down the hall, you can still hear the music.

 

         She will play it for you, again and again, year after year:

         the same songs you heard when you were five.

 

         Listen.  Listen harder.

         You can hear it all, every note, every dance step

 

         when it was easy for your to lift your legs, clap your hands,

         and skip sideways around the painted circle

 

         in the middle of her room.

         If you don’t return, now and then, to the Esmond School,

 

         your hearing grows faint with those melodies; the smell

         of City-of-Chicago varnish evaporates like an oasis

         in the sandbox;

        

         your farsightedness no longer daydreams the warm,

         inner mysteries

 

         of the cloakroom, where she stored the secrets

         of mismatched galoshes and the key to chocolate milk.

 

         If you won’t spend

         a minute sitting around the scuffed, red circle of time,

 

         legs crossed, waiting for recess, you will never rise

         to the occasion

 

         when music and memory call your name for the roll

         of sudden invention, with a bright, silver star for attendance.

 

         To return, all you need do is stand up, face the flag, and sing three times,

         “Good morning, Mrs. Kirschten.  How do you do?”

 

         She will begin her class--even as safety scissors cut

         childhood from your hands--with “The Pledge of Allegiance”

 

         and “My Country tis of Thee,”

         then send you back home on your first day for lunch

 

         with a blue-green yellow-purple picture of three smiling

         paper daisies

 

         and my mother’s hand-played, musical note pinned to your sleeve

         for the rest of your life:

 

                            “As I was walking down the street,

                                       A little friend I chanced to meet.

                           Hi ho.  Hi ho.  Hi ho.   Hi ho.

                                   A riggedy jig and away we go.”

 

 

                                                OLD FAMILY MOVIES

 

         Underexposed, still the mid-fifties

         flicker clearly enough

         through these spliced Christmas cuttings,

         this eight-millimeter lantern

         of tin,

         grinding out years

         that had darkened from me slowly

         like theatre lights.

         The film jumps,

         frame runs into frame

         juggling characters

         like overweight acrobats

         nervous on opening night,

         but a knob

         adjusts the past

         and again the early morning

         rituals of toys

         decorate my childhood.

         Pine wreaths, straw beneath

         kings camel-backed in ermine,

         choirs of German candles,

         the tree

         a live-wired mosaic

         in water,

         all these

         crowd now to memory

         like relatives to a table.

 

         And toasts         hands          glasses                  filling the screen,

         the lens widening          drawn back                        faces, mirrors

         of joy:                   aunts, uncles, father                  all are children

         reborn of machine-light                         the shimmering umbilical

         unwinding minutes fragile                    as an uncle’s cigar smoke.

 

         At reel’s end                            adults’ eyes champagne-sparkling

         a final close-up, the screen                           blinding to sunspots

         then whiteness.          Yet beheld by me still               are scenes

         of different tone:                                           telephone calls from

         the hospital                  a child’s surprise                        at death

 

         long expected, mortality emerging                        from corridors

         wrapped               in white tile, tubes, dials                        never

         to be played with.                                         To be touched, only

         in reflection, bright absence of real hue                          color of

         time          the ever-leaving guest                          uninvited, but

 

         even  then, acquainted                     with my father, his brothers

         and sisters                               their heart-attacks    and cancers.

 

                  The empty reel slows on its spindle.

                  On the lamp unplugged for the projector, tinsel

                  glinting.

                  Street light slices through gray curtains.

                  His firs grow over the house.

                  As his child, I learned there was a picture

                  for everything:

                  ice and rain, permanence and change.

                  Bethlehem’s romance, then, illuminating all

                  with its narrative of ornament.

                  The machine is off;  what could not be seen

                  begins.

                  My hands folded, watching.

                  Pine needles darken into the new year.

 

 

                  EDWARD HOPPER'S PAINTING "NIGHTHAWKS, " 1942

                                           Art Institute, Chicago

 

You find no filament

illuminating this 1940's all-night cafe

with its incandescent ceiling

blazing

in a scalene horizontal

of pale yellow.

Instead of electric globes,

your eye encounters spectral glare

flung outward in wedges

as if beaming from

above three lone patrons:

one back-turned faceless fedora

at the counter

and a couple with fixed gaze

of aluminum coffee urns.

For Hopper's light radiates coldly

from within forms,

not from the unseen street lamp

or fluorescent tubes,

but within these blue-streaking shadows

pointing inside

from the pavement

like a string of fallen pennants.

Even as the starched late-shift attendant

bends toward empty stools, his uniform reflects

only the artist's austere harmony

of faded whites with

the hour's dazzling numbness.

If you peer closer,

what you thought a plate glass window,

like familiar laws of light,

vanishes

into Hopper's framing

of that neon corner grill you pass,

not noticing

these same glazed stares,

perched nightly

in vitreous isolation.

 

from FOUR CHICAGO FEASTS

 

CHICAGO DEEP-DISH PIZZA

 

--medium Special

 

You are down to your last slice.

You ate the whole thing almost. It must have weighed

almost five pounds.

 

    You couldn't stop yourself after 2 small spoons of chopped fresh basil

   began deep down to bite into your tastebuds

along with

   the tantalizing teaspoon of opulent oregano,

spicing

up

the plush-red plum tomatoes.

 

When the pungent parmesan met the molten mozzarella,

your hot tongue

deep-kissed the deep delight of deep dish

that is

the true taste of Chicago.

 

You ate the rich, Italian soul food of the city's soul:

layer after layer, cheese after big cheese, sausage

after the satisfaction

of knowing that gluttony in Chicago

is often

its own glorious reward.

 

Finish it off. Go ahead.

   So what if you now weigh more than the Wrigley Building?

 

This is pizza. This is Chicago.

 

This is Chicago pizza.