A Baptism at Mansfield Middle School

Study No. 48 (Aug. 30, 2013)

I
Emerge from the silent, heavy lake of
Easy sleep. Let tired drip off and dreams dis-
Solve. The kitchen chair that slightly rocks, sit
There with black tea and oranges, but be brief.

Go out into the bright empty morning.

II
Cross the foreign street to where the crowd is
Before Mansfield Middle School and enter
There, the big room with tiled floors, filled with

Rows of folding chairs and a small stage built
Into the front wall, with blue curtain closed,
Where the school kids performed their play last night.

There in the room filled with song and clapping
I took a tag and wrote my name and filled
My cup with coffee. Then I took my seat.

III
We sat and listened, then chewed our wafers,
Opened the seals on our plastic jelly
Cups, drank, in one sip, the hallowed Welch's.

Then, on a projection screen flashed the words:
HOPE THAT DOESN'T DISAPPOINT. Up front an
Old grey, heavyset man began to speak.

IV
Katherine steps on stage accompanied by
Three young women. She is younger than they,
Meeker, milder. The room is now silent.

Katherine steps into a tub hidden be-
Hind a banner. One woman fawns her, one
Takes her glasses, and the last lowers her

Head until she is out of view. Seconds
Later she emerges and stands, soaking
Wet and shivering -- everywhere applause.

"Red rice, chicken and beans! Free lunch outside!"
Shouts a man. And as the room clears out I
See, still on stage, cold and drenched, Katherine,

Wrapped in towels, putting on her glasses.

V
Go a mile north to the small museum,
Up the sidewalk flanked with mission olives
Where toddlers on tricycles pedal past,
Their blue plastic wheels scraping the pavement.

Walk in the noonday heat. Step over where the
Yellow and white of a dropped egg thickens
To the stained glass doors of the museum.

VI
I went straight to the upstairs gallery.
And on the far wall, standing like old friends:
Sun on the Baltic Beach, Partly Cloudy,
and between them Green on Blue. I stood there
In quiet conversation with the pulse
And buzz of ancient reverberations.

And, softly as I came, I took my leave.

VII
Look: the crooked gate of a bow-legged
Young small girl clasping her mother's fingers,
Desperate for balance; desperate for much more.

We live our lives in crooked steps, my own
Pace wavering as I walk and all a-
Round I see hands held out, reaching. The street,
The towers, the city itself: all hands.

My own are empty and I open them.
And I, in the Sunday sun, my endless
Body tipping, see the smooth surfaces
Of unwrinkled palms. I, too, hold them out.