Traveler by Devin Johnston

Author:Devin Johnston [Johnston, Devin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Tags: Poetry
ISBN: 9781466886667
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2011-08-29T23:00:00+00:00

KID

Before I’ve shed my scarf and coat,

she’s on me, shouting Kid! We’re late!

Like surf, she batters around my knees,

aggressive joy, insistent need.

Her greeting, mock-tyrannical,

initiates a game or spell,

though one as lightly taken up

as any blossom she begs to clip

and later begs to cast aside.

Hey kid! she crows, and I accede

to misrule—kid assumes a force

by which familiar roles reverse.

Outside, a mockingbird explodes

in hectic song, its vocal raids

on chickadee and chimney swift.

We hurry past to catch a flight

to some fantastic Bangladesh,

our destination crudely sketched

in chalk, a scratchy pictograph

of crocodile or banyan leaf.

Invention lags, the day turns cold,

and we resume accustomed roles.

At dusk, while her authority

gives way to sleep, I watch TV:

A Buddhist lama passed away

and left his pupil, Tenzin-Ja,

to scour the land for his rebirth.

The lama’s silk hat pointed north

and a giant, star-shaped fungus bloomed

beside the northern wall of his tomb.

Such omens guided Tenzin-Ja

to where a scraggy hamlet lay

like scree beneath its granite slope.

An old man drove a herd of goats

through the gate on which his child

swung at play, the arcing ride

from help to hindrance back to help.

Presented with a row of bells,

the boy, as if awakening

from deep in a trance, grasped and rang

the lama’s own. It’s mine, it’s mine!

—a glint of something in his eye

that set his family ill at ease.

So Tenzin-Ja took custody

of the rinpoche who once raised him,

exchanges signaled by a chime.

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