ON THE BEAR VALLEY TRAIL
Murray Silverstein
Early fall and I’m looking for ways to say linger
on the Bear Valley Trail. To tarry. To feather the nest
of linger, the grass at the base of the meadow,
in a field of gold and dying, still pale green.
Plugged into a Bach partita, the flight patterns
over the meadow—every bird in the book—
synchronize to form one bright invisible
meta-Bach-bird, darting, mothlike, through the field,
circling, silent, above. Does anyone still say, Tarry
awhile? I say to Marsh, and SHOOTING THE SHIT
appears: “I was shooting the shit with Whitey,”
and it’s Pa explaining to Ma why he’s running late.
(Whitey pumped gas at the corner. Union 76.
Crew cut, chiseled [chis-ler—sold me that dud
of a car], blue-striped shirt, oily rag hanging out
his pocket—grease monkey, my sister said—
pack of Camels in the fold of his sleeve.)
Tarry, Whitey, tarry, Pa. Shoot the shit.
First time I’d heard it said; I’m seven, maybe eight.
Couldn’t wait to say it to pals. Said it aloud
to the Bach and the birds. Nothing’s enough, ever,
’til, emptied of itself, memory makes it so.
In a field of gold and dying, the grass
at the base of the meadow, still pale green.
Murray Silverstein has been published in RATTLE, The Brooklyn Review, Spillway, Poetry East, West Marin Review, RUNES, Nimrod, Connecticut Review, ZYZZYVA, California Quarterly, Fourteen Hills, Pembroke Magazine, Elysian Fields Quarterly, among others. He has authored two books of poetry, Master of Leaves (2014) and Any Old Wolf (2007), the latter of which received the Independent Publisher’s Bronze Medal for Poetry in 2006. Silverstein is the senior editor of the anthology America, We Call Your Name: Poems of Resistance and Resilience (2018), winner of the Independent Publisher’s Silver Medal for Anthologies in 2017. All were published by Sixteen Rivers Press. A retired architect, Silverstein also co-authored four books about architecture, including A Pattern Language (Oxford University Press) and Patterns of Home (The Taunton Press). He holds a master’s degree in architecture.