Heaven for Helen

Helen says heaven, for her,

would be complete immersion

in physical process,

without self-consciousness -

to be the respiration of the grass,

or ionized agitation

just above the break of a wave,

traffic in a sunflower's thousand golden rooms.

Images of exchange,

and of untrammeled nature.

But if we're to become part of it all,

won't our paradise also involve

participation in being, say,

diesel fuel, the impatience of trucks

on August pavement,

weird glow of service areas

along the interstate at night?

We'll be shiny pink egg cartons,

and the thick treads of burst tires

along the highways in Pennsylvania:

a hell we've made to accompany

the given: we will join

our tiresome productions,

things that want to be useless forever.

But that's me talking. Helen

would take the greatest pleasure

in being a scrap of paper,

if that's what there were to experience.

Perhaps that's why she's a painter,

finally: to practice disappearing

into her scrupulous attention,

an exacting rehearsal for the larger

world of things it won't be easy to love.

Helen I think will master it, though I may not.

She has practiced a long time learning to see.

I have devoted myself to affirmation,

when I should have kept my eyes on the ground.

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