Gabriel by Edward Hirsch Page A

him
    Like a young lion trying out its roar
    At the far edge of the den
    The roar inside him was even louder
    Like a bolt of lightning in the fog
    Like a bolt of lightning over the sea
    Like a bolt of lightning in our backyard
    Like the time I opened the furnace
    In the factory at night
    And the flames came blasting out
    I was unprepared for the intensity
    Of the heat escaping
    As if I’d unsheathed the sun
    Like a crazed fly the daredevil monarch
    Like a bee exploding from its hive
    Like a bird ricocheting off the window
    Like a small car zooming too fast
    On a two-lane highway at night
    His friends thought they would die
    Like the war cry of an injured crane
    Falling into the sea
    I did not see it hit the waves
    Like the stray fury of a bullet
    Splintering against a skull
    The soldier looked surprised
    He did not move when they touched him
    Like a bolt of lightning flooded with darkness
    After it strikes the sea
    Ben Jonson was off in the country
    Visiting a friend’s estate
    When he had a vision
    Of his eldest son Benjamin
    Who appeared to him with the mark
    Of a bloody cross on his forehead
    As if it had been cut with a sword
    Jonson was so amazed
    By the apparition that he prayed
    Unto God it was but a fantasy
    His friends assured him
    It was a fevered dream
    It was no dream
    The letter came from his wife
    Announcing their seven-year-old son
    Had died of the Pest
    Ravaging London in 1603
    Why had the father escaped
    That night Jonson’s son appeared
    To him again in a dream
    This time the child of his right hand
    Had grown into the shape of a man
    The one he would become
    On the Day of Resurrection
    Jonson wrote a poem and called his son
    His best piece of poetrie
    A lovely line a little loathsome
    I loved that poem once
    He said we are lent our sons never take
    Too much pleasure in what you love
    Why go over seven years of fertility
    Doctors medicine men in clinics
    Peddling surgeries and drugs
    Why go over seven years of treatments
    That never engendered a child
    Janet and I adopted him
    It took another twelve months
    Of social workers and lawyers
    Home studies and courtrooms
    Passports and interlocutory orders
    Injunctions jurisdictions handshakes
    Everyone standing around in suits
    Saying
yes we think so yes
    What was for others nature
    Was for us culture
    We traveled from Rome to New Orleans
    It took twenty-three hours
    Of anguish and airplanes
    Instructions in two languages
    Music from cream-colored headsets
    Jet lag instead of labor
    On the other end a rainbow
    Of streamers in the French Quarter
    A celebration in Jackson Square
    We stayed in an empty bungalow
    And waited all night
    By the bay-shaped window
    For the moment when our lawyer
    Collected him from the hospital
    And brought him to us
    It was inscribed
    In the Book of Life
    And the court of law
    It was signed in a neighboring parish
    And written in black ink
    It was sealed in blood
    After five days and nights
    On this earth our lawyer
    Took him from the arms of a nurse
    Strapped him into an infant seat
    And delivered him
    Into our keeping
    A wrinkled traveler
    From faraway who had journeyed
    A great distance to find us
    A sweet aboriginal angel
    With his own life a throbbing bundle
    Of instincts and nerves
    Perfect fingers perfect toes
    Shiny skin blue soulful eyes
    Deeply set in a perfectly shaped head
    He was a trumpet of laughter
    And tears who did not sleep
    Through the night even once
    O little swimmer in the deeps
    Raise up your arms
    Ring out your lungs
    O wailing messenger
    O baleful full-bodied crier
    Of the abandoned and the chosen
    He dropped out of the sky
    Into the infirmary in the Garden District
    At nine pounds two ounces
    When he was eight days old
    We carried him into family court
    In a plastic molded seat with a handle
    After he settled our case with a special order
    The judge an amateur photographer
    Snapped pictures of us in the witness stand
    We propped him up in the middle
    Of the table in a Chinese restaurant
    And rotated him this