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2022 Academy of American Poets Prize

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Bury the Old Man with His Hearing Aids

by Richard Haney-Jardine

 

i. “the killing floors” kansas city, kansas, summer of 1943 in the beginning, the silence and then the hog What came before were the lost. What came next were the greatest. When they came, they were silent. Can it really be that between what is lost and what is silent lies what is greatest about us? What could be so grand about lives blitzed clean, incarnadine khakis and gabardines, tanks stuck in ruts, and in a bunker or from the gallows, vanquished little men, too quick to rise, too slow to fall, entirely terrible? They had no choice. Their voices. Had no choice. No voices. Vise-gripped, their silence was drowned out by the dark chugs and the thuds of the last plopped clods of the hogs’ dung, lifted up by their hocks, shrieking as they died open mouthed, eating the rank torrid air as they expired from pink to red. They use everything about the hog except the squeal. The squeal, the squeal, the squeal. They were The Silent Generation. And, the floors, the floors were slippery, slippery with water and with blood. boeing jet Remember Pretty Boyd Floyd and the massacre at Union Station? This was after that, after that bullish bevy of railroad men fenced off those first five acres of West Bottoms along the banks of the Kansas River, staking thousands into hundreds of small stock pens for more cows and hogs than there were mouths to feed in K-Town. This was after the Chicago River became the Bubbly Creek brimming with skulls and offal. This was after the Livestock Exchange: 250 feet on Genesee St and 16th, Plus 126 feet to the West, west where the sun set. But not too long before that Boeing Jet, mandarin slice of fire, iridescent, clipped the power lines in Georgetown and smashing through the shaft of the Frye Meat Packing Plant roasted all 20 men working their shifts and all 11 members of the flight crew. It took two seconds to debristle the carcass of a hog, fewer than three to de-head a cow, one second to die on the killing floors. And the floors, the floors were slippery,slippery with water and with bloodthe fancy meat department This was 1943 and Kansas City. Kansas City. Armourdale to be precise. Summer. July to be exact. July. Knee-high in the flames of summer in the Greatest Cattle and Livestock Exchange in the World! said the papers, said, Nothing stands in the way of Kansas City becoming the greatest city in the world! In all the world. And my daddy Virgil just a penny shy of sixteen worked amid knockers, stickers headers, gut-snatchers kidney pullers, splitters rumpers, backers grinders, trimmers cheekers, boners pullers, and luggers sending the hearts and livers to the fancy meat department amid the Germans, Swedes Poles, and Russians—the best, Croats, Slovaks, Letts who came next, Greeks, Italians, and then the Blacks who were always sunk to the bottom dispatched with slop buckets and brooms to swipe the boards clean. Remember that. Always last. Remember that. And the floors, the floors were slippery, slippery with water and with blood.unreported Bulletin No 855 of the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, No 34, page 39: While an employee was operating a bone shredding machine, the machine exploded, crushing the employee's legs. One leg amputated. [Apparently this machine was de¬fective. All grinders and meat mills should he thoroughly inspected by competent mechanics at regular, frequent intervals. When the inspection reveals any defect, the machine should he removed from service until it has been repaired.] * *UNREPORTED: an employee at the splitting machine lost control of the saw, and a cow’s rib-bone splintered a coworker’s ear drums. Shattered both ear drums. Permanent deaf¬ness in one ear. […] Pa rum pum pum pum. I am a poor boy, too, Pa rump pum pum pum. Rump rump rump rump. Daddy didn’t even make it into the bulletin. Pa rump rump rump rump. Do the math: 4% to the head (not eyes), 3% to the eyes, 11% to the back; 13% to the trunk, 6% to the arm, 38% to the hands or fingers, 9% to the leg, 15% to the foot or toes, 1% other. What are the odds? 1%. That’s luck for you. And wham the wind will never whistle through you again. It will only whizz by. And Dad would come home, lucky this time so they’d eat the lambs, they’d eat the lambs for Easter and goats if the lambs were scarce! They’d eat the lambs, they’d eat the lambs for Easter and if Russell could spare it, the hearts and livers from the warm fancy-meat department and rabbits if the hearts and livers ran scarce! And, the floors, the floors were slippery, slippery with water and with blood.How could he, any of them, have known, meager harvest of barely-men, hunched over, rooting out rutabagas, picking corn, slashing sorghum? How could they have guessed we were only between wars? How could they have known since hunger has a way of lingering over the fields? Known no real glory stems from hunching over, stooped over conveyor belts, deaf¬ened by the hammer of pistons? These boy-men, meek and biddable as cattle, barely lowing, weathering the cyclones and sneaky carnies waving five-dollar bills for the highest striker, five dollars, enough for the kind of sturdy boots you’d need in the abattoirs, a pair that could make deep depressions in the eternal of the killing floors. Still, it was a dime per head, cow or pig, nickel for a lamb, The rare goat, on special order, two cents. And when you are fifteen a nickel is halfway to the pictures anyways. And, the floors, the floors were slippery, slippery with water and with blood.ii. “the corn on the fourth of july” kansas city, kansas, 1968 Some worlds are always new, some, so familiar, they yawn back at us. And some new worlds are already old: my father’s parents’ house with rugs braided from plastic Holsum Bread bags, a TV, large as an oven, cooking up Bonanzas, a hatched cellar where the canned harvests still seeped into the air from their sealed-up mason jars. And all those faces! Tanned or pale, creased or taut, bodies thin as cigarettes or wide, billowy. Were there watermelon heats, sweaty half-rest naps, lightbulb summer fireflies? I can’t say. My Daddy’s world was new and old, and I was already busy forgetting it. Except that buzzard phone keeping vigil: only for my Daddy’s calls from Caracas on Sundays, Long Distance. A week later, we returned to Mami’s home, and everything seemed glossy again, money coins freshly minted. When Daddy rang Kansas City that next Sunday, I heard his halting cough on our satin phone. Was that cough new? How’s the weather—cough—Ma? Pa?—cough. Could I have known he meant, I—cough—love you? Maybe I did look up at him, my irises like amber rum, a half-breed. Maybe I was thinking, how can this wind-blond, corn-tall, blue prairie-flax-eyed, too-earnest visa-man be my kith and kin? But maybe all I heard were chirping rain frogs amid the spiked bromeliads. iii. “lucciola” tía juana, venezuela, 1976 Night turpentined the hour, Painterly, reeking black Brush strokes, the night, a cat, The moon, its Cheshire grin. Just that moon, hiding Behind kitchen curtains, Silvered like a firefly, Our boyhoods, unzippered. Too soon. Wrong moon. Waxing slant-eyed, saying Nothing, maybe winking. Could this be what he calls God? iv. “hunters” cambridge, massachusetts, 1983 How I’ve prowled belly-down like a hunter through strangled thickets to root out that slippery thief with its eyelid- tender petals that lady slipper of an orchid of a thing in camouflage deer-hooved lichen that felt cooler on my fingers than the rill that twisted by it and so soft to the touch it almost felt indelicate— how I’ve stalked, brother, through hardscrabble years to seize the robber words, to rustle into this hinky world the way to say that what he plucked from me were not the fruits of love. v. “a town called peculiar” peculiar, missouri,1988 This broken heartland of unbroken land This wild underbrush fowl from span to span This unceasing complaint of prairie plains: My father’s heart grew fond in this Siberia And funerals call him back the odd years Till he’s the last, and never returns there. Tomorrow, the last sister packed up, dead, My father will drive bawling Kansas roads, Broad and aimless Missouri boulevards, Showing his little boy soul—still aseat Next to him, where one of his sons should sit— These abandoned corners of wheat or dirt Where that long-ago echo echoes on, Blown through the boneblond earth, growing fond again For whatever herd comes next, whether bison Or cow, whiteface or red, railroad or death.vi. “the pomegranate” caracas, venezuela, july 5, 1995, venezuela’s independence day From a photo you cannot tell much Or from seeing his figure stretched out On the couch snoozing gently: This is the after-dinner father, Who makes sleep easy and earnest work In a house where bills paid promptly Never shuffle underfoot, Where bad weather hardly lingers. His love is a crossword puzzle Filled out daily in a half-reflective dash. Twelve-letter word before living: P-O-S-T-P-O-N-E-M-E-N-T. And after that, a secret that is ruby As the cache of seeds in a pomegranate: My father never says, though tiptoeing Through life tells much And from my father’s gait you would know He is a man steeped in sweet despair, Dark, strong, filtered like coffee: A bitter drink to serve after dinner.vii. “the ocean is bleeding salt” nauset beach, massachusetts, 2003 The red flags are up: NO SWIMMING: but still I swim. Gulls calculate from kite-level, then they descend— Their silver, mid-November catch, dull, dim-witted, slim Menhaden, heaped up on the beach, dozens, sent Upcoast from Jupiter Inlet to Nova Scotia, Flapping their last on cracked sands where I stand to dry. Once, I would brave waves more barbarous than these, in Cata, Calling the waters’ bluff, staring down their crests, gliding Into their hushed pockets, mesmerized but fearless. Now, keeping the surf at bay with eagle-eyed stares, Casting my gaze beyond these shoals, I wonder what sort of father Would not rise up to shield his kin, asking why not him. Decades in, I still can’t fathom who my real enemies Are and who forgives our sins. This grief outbrines all the seas. viii. “hermit crabs” new york, new york, 2008 That day will open up for us, a text With endless pages, nothing written on them Quite yet or every word’s rendered in Braille To make us feel out things together, connect The dots, proceed across this alien book Like hermit crabs. I wish that black walnut’s Putrid casings hadn’t soiled our full-mooned Grass, wish the implacable high-tide swell hadn’t Delivered us alone upon this strand, Wish miracles could be reserved for us, A concourse of angels summoned to stand Beside us, lead us to heap hyacinths Upon his grave, not ours, and help us take Six strings without guitars to make new silences. (Above us, vast Asias, full amnesties of skies.)ix. “when the forsythia greens” brookline, massachusetts, easter sunday, 2015 My father will never die. My mother is always dying. They buy green bananas. They set an alarm clock. I am the one tick-tocking. Ninety-three, crosswording. Eighty-six, listing to-dos. He is sturdy as a whisper. She is splintering bones. Their pills are Sweet Tarts. I am a sliver of his rib. I am a reed of her larynx. We speak on the phone. Their words aren’t oracular. They aren’t particular. • My dog’s ears prick up. She’s heard, Outside. She makes ready to bolt. Their calls do that to me. I feel the drive to walk. Already spring has landed. Forsythia has gone green. Yellow, it gave a Judas kiss. Now, it means Easter’s over. They won’t recognize the birds. I must find us the right food. Maybe we’ll only eat flowers. We’ll lean into Lowell’s magnolias. They call from Marlborough St. They sound forever far.x. “bury the old man with his hearing aids” houston, texas, march 2021 already the light was dimming: He spoke endlessly of Armourdale. It was the summer he remembered best, summer 1943, having to feel lucky to eat the flesh that clung to his overalls, stank to high heaven and always the squealing that nothing tampered, nothing tempered. I say this with detachment: He died while I was sleeping. I say this clinically: Like a forensic coroner inspecting a bullet hole in the temporal lobe. He was born on April 15th, 1928. His next birthday would have been on a Thursday. The zodiac Sign for this date is Aries, the ram. Historically, Aries has been depicted as a crouched, wingless ram with its head turned towards Taurus. Aries is one of the 48 constella-tions described by the 2nd century astronomer Ptolemy and remains one of the 88 modern constellations. It is a mid-sized constellation, ranking 39th overall in size, with an area of 441 square degrees. I want it to be daylight savings time eternally. But now night is all Pegasus, the comets galloping across the sky. And once the curtains are drawn closed, the bloodletting begins, my heart drums, all my blood marshals itself into one vein on my temple, swarming like bees alighting on a sticky spot, a single sickly rose. O Röschen rot, Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not, Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein, Ja, lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein. Bury the old man with his hearing aids.how to prepare: You can’t imagine standing on the shore in pajamas waving at diminishing horizons robbed of yourself by those distancing ships you thought you owned: the ports, the ships, the seas! And soon enough you learn that we all become those ships, their cargos, their stowaways, and you blame that Cape summer his last year, the jellyfish, the new Tide detergent you bought because maybe, you blame the razorbills, piping plovers, rosa rugosas, beach grass, the men after low tide finding the right compacted sand for their bocce pitch because you watched them as if they were the stars in a cinema, and you weren’t watching him not reading the Times, slouched in a beach chair, snoozing, as if he’d still had all the afternoons in the world. Bury the old man with his hearing aids. but you can expect: First, you take away his car keys. First, you stock the fridge with vanilla pudding. First, you stay awake until he stirs in the morning. First, you take your own pulse and blood pressure obsessively. First, you mail your 23andme tube to make sure he wasn’t lying about Scotland. And then, you set the thermostat at 87° and shroud wool blankets on his lap. And then, you hear Catholic schoolboy prayers you thought long forgotten. And then, you greet the newly dead who soon will be his neighbors. And then, you look at death right in its sucker-punch face. And then, you change, one last time, his sheets. Bury the old man with his hearing aids. and you will ask some questions: Who says, ‘Good heart, good heart, you are the phoenix of these woods’? Who answers, seized by flattery, ‘I am, I am,’ and believes it? What things are promised in the end to a man but promises? What wakes him if not dreams finished or undreamed? When will a man cancel all his subscriptions? When will the morning seem too early? Where are the snows of yesteryear, where? Where did he hide his passwords, favorite songs? How did he shrink to fit a standard coffin so neatly? How do you take the full measure of a man and his works? Why does a man onBury the old man with his hearing aids. and here are some things you might discover: That he won’t share with you more bedlam yellow-jacket early summer days That you will hear for him those things he could only half-hear, for instance: Children shrieking into dusk as if they had all the freedom in the world— such a horrid thought—their cheap-shot crying to stay out later, please! That nothing really happens to you in particular, it all just happens. That God will sound more and more like stale fortune cookies never specific, never reliable, not very good and no better than those counterfeit, luckless, random lottery numbers. That his last birthday sweatervest, its colors liver spots, spider veins, hematomas, will come back to you. Bury the old man with his hearing aids. and you will laugh at how small last words can be: I am dying beyond my means. I can’t even afford to die. What is the answer? In that case, what is the question? I should’ve never switched from scotch to martinis. All right, I will say it. Dante makes me sick. A certain butterfly is already on the wing. Am I dying or is this my birthday? Quelle est le carré de 12 ? 144 Put that bloody cigarette out. God, I’ve never felt better. I am bored with it all. Bury the old man with his hearing aids. then you discover the final requests are actually yours: Leave behind his bifocals, his dentures— sky food is insubstantial as clouds, dust, water. But please bury my old man with hearing aids: I want him to hear Gabriel’s horn if it sounds, my own last half-words, I want him to hear this good heart he gave me still tender enough to weep Weeping, and also storms in the elms before they go quiet, metabolizing air in half-whispers, and the thousand tranquil towns I have become, waking every day at the soft panting dogs walking, morning sounds, my brothers first chuckling then sobbing. He must hear trumpets, too, and be risen so I can look at his constellation. Stars can be bought for a price. Surely constellations, too? I have already paid a great price.notes “the killing floors” American authors William Strauss (1947–2007) and Neil Howe (b. 1951) proposed a still-popular “gen¬erational the¬ory” in Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069, published in 1992. They ascribe the term “Lost Generation” to the cohort born between 1883 and 1900, men and women who came of age in time to live through and/or to fight in WW I with its tremendous loss of human life. According to Strauss and Howe, “lost” also describes the diso¬rientation, wandering, and di¬rectionless these survivors felt in adjusting to the post-war years. The “Greatest Generation,” also known as the “G.I. Generation,” refers to the individ¬uals born between 1901 and 1924 who would be the principal partic¬ipants of WW II. “The Silent Generation,” write Strauss and Howe, came next: individuals born between 1925–1942. A famous article published by Time magazine in 1951 gave the label its cur¬rency: “It has been called the ‘Silent Generation.’ But what does the silence mean? What, if anything, does it hide?” Perhaps, the unattributed author suggests, they were pos¬sessed with a “cautious desire to be ‘well-fixed.’” The causes for their conformity were many: “the war; the lingering shock of the Big Depression (which this younger generation felt or heard about in its childhood); and the hard-to-kill belief… that the frontiers of the U.S. economy have been reached.” Writing for Forbes magazine in 2014, Howe characterizes this cohort as being sand¬wiched “awkwardly between two better-known gener¬a¬tions: They were born just too late to be World War II heroes [the Lost Generation] and just too early to be New Age firebrands [Baby Boomers].” As a fifteen-year-old, my father worked in the slaughterhouses of Kansas City, Kansas. The quotation about the pig’s squeal comes from The Jungle (1905), the novel by Upton Sinclair (1878–1968): “I aimed at the public’s heart, and by accident I hit the stomach.” Pretty Boyd Floyd (Charles Arthur Floyd, 1904–34) and an associate Adam Richetti (1909–1938) wer“the ocean is bleeding salt,” This is the title of a song by Margot & The Nuclear So and So’s. I allude here to Robert Lowell’s “Fall 1961”: “A father’s no shield/for his child.” “bury the old man with his hearing aids” “O Röschen rot,/Der Mensch liegt in grösster Not,/Der Mensch liegt in grösster Pein,/Ja, lieber möcht ich im Himmel sein” comes from the German folk song “Urlicht” (Primordial Light), which Austrian com¬poser Gustav Mahler (1860–1911) adapted and incorporated into the fourth movement of his Second Symphony, known as the “Resurrection Symphony”: “Oh, little red rose,/Mankind lies in terri¬ble need,/Mankind lies in terrible pain,/Verily, I’d rather be in Heaven.” In the first two lines of the section “and you will ask some questions,” I invoke La Fontaine’s fable of the fox and the crow. In the section “how to prepare,” I am referring to one of the mnemonic devices often used in teaching French pronunciation to foreigners. The phrase “mille villes tranquilles,” ( a thousand tran¬quil towns), con¬tains the only three ex¬ceptions to the rule that words ending in a double “l” are pro¬nounced as an “iy” sound rather than as an “l” sound, as is the case with these three words. I find that taken together these three words form their own lovely little poem. “Where are the snows of yesteryear?” is a translation of “Où sont les neiges d’antan?” taken from the fifteenth cen¬tury troubadour François de Villon’s “Ballad for the Ladies of a Time Long Past.” The deathbed words in the section “and you will laugh at how small last words can be” have been attributed in the order they appear to: Irish poet, play¬wright, and satirist Oscar Wilde (1854–1900); American poet, playwright, and author Gertrude Stein (1874–1946); American actor Humphrey Bogart (1889–1959); Spanish playwright Lope de Vega (1562–1635); Russian born novelist Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977); American socialite and politician Lady Nancy Astor (1879–1964), the first woman seated as a Member of Parliament; French mathematician Thomas Fantet de Lag

 

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