Porch

Who taught me to put words on paper?
It was a man whose work I see in murals,
whom I will never meet.
Who taught me how to lead?
His disemboweled corpse was burned
eight hundred years ago.
The man who taught me to sing—
where is he?
Buried and unhappy in love.
The man who showed me the meaning of power
is somewhere gone,
rotting away, half-drowned and crazy,
and the warm light that surrounded his piano
will not draw to itself again
that handful of innovation—
for those souls, too, have passed away.
Who taught me the meaning of valor?
Who taught me the way to measure a man?
I don't even know his name.
Only his words came to me,
filtered through translation,
their power fractioned.
Yet I learned.
This is my pen, these are my melodies:
a wooden flute and a leftover belief in dignity.
I burn candles at my own piano,
and when winter comes, I will comfort
in my own lap the emaciated fortifications who call me lord.
But the tales of my great deeds will not reach the ears of my teachers.