by Patrick T. Reardon
Tree
There is not now standing at
18th Street, west of Prairie
Avenue, the large cottonwood
tree that, a sapling, witnessed
the war of peoples that turned
the soil into real estate, the
mud place into city. Fed into
a fire place.
The Tower of Silence chatters at
her McDonald’s table, walled with
packages and luggage and her
sunglasses and the Cincinnati
Reds cap, centennial edition.
The old oak blazed next to the
World War I cannon at the start
of Grand Avenue, near the Pizza
Hut, and never crisped, blazed
without blackening, consumed
all the night from the dirt to the
sky as the white light line went
one way and the red light line the
other in three a.m. rain-snow.
Broken bread left over is tossed
to scriptural pigeons in the alley
across from the cathedral door.
From the sacristy window, the
polio cardinal patterns the pigeon
walk as if for kabalic import. He
turns to his questioner and says
we pray for our enemies — the
mastermind was human, the one
wearing the device was human,
the one piloting. Hard saying.
The unwashed body was found at
the foot of the old treaty elm on
Kilbourn, just north of Rogers
Avenue, the Old Indian Boundary
Line. After a white line was drawn,
the tree was sliced and diced and
fed into the chipper, and the chips
were piled over the old soul shell
and set afire, like a French girl
martyr. From a distance, teens
drank beer and watched.
Followers gathered at Cricket
Hill between soccer games to
listen to the humble homily about
the archangel that led the disciple
out of Cook County Jail, doors
opening as if by special effects, and
on the sidewalk, nowhere to go,
but he goes anyway.
Chicago is a land of honey, land of
milk, suckled and slurped. Rust is
the color of the city’s true love.
Let truth be A and hope B and C is
the sea-like lake, remnant of the
ice time, rising blue-gray to the
edge of sight, the end of vision,
the vision of the torn temple veil,
tombs open, the ground shaking
and a mustard seed.
As it is in heaven
John of Lent with the sewer crew of four
men as distant as his father. Lord of Bricks.
On earth as it is.
Learned to throw bricks to the mason in
the hole, not willy nilly, two pressed together
in an embrace, soft and firm, swung down like a lilt.
Set no limits on the Cosmos. Truth in gracelessness
along Reformation Road.
In those years
In those years, everyone at
the paper knew the name of
the Cook County Coroner.
Knew what could be written
and not.
Knew the young bodies in
flowing summer dresses, red
and yellow. Light green and
white.
The forehead of Vermeer’s
seated sleeper.
One-Cent wished to be
attractive to the one
in small-butt cutoffs. Knew
he was in his clumsy way
there to the one with eyes,
the one with smile, the
gap-tooth one.
The ceiling trap door in the
firmament to the black
light-spackled universe opened.
Heart-O-Chicago motel.
In those years, the rat
darted along the brick wall
until the alley opening and
then snapped open soft fur
wings and gained speed
down the sidewalk runway
right at One-Cent’s face,
and from the small pavement
crack blossomed, like a poison
smoke bomb, the face of his
thunder mother clouding his
body in a hammerlock hold
like an insane wrestler intent
on being obeyed no matter
what.
Sacred of space
Give my wine to the next seated.
Frog mouse battle. Fall of Troy.
Odyssey trickster. Blind bard nameless
knew walls tumble down.
In those years, joker rat
pioneered through ash and
cinder soil to the garage
floor cement crack and
another route to anywhere.
Fat, unharried rabbits
ate the pink impatiens
as if ordained, store plastic
left behind.
One-Cent knew to count his steps
in case they added to something.
The voice of the sparrow
was unheard under the snap
of the twitch.
Whip crack thunder on the right.
Overcast on the left. A whole cup.
Pain has one hundred and one faces.
Hogarth’s lady, the smile and the eyes.
****
Patrick T. Reardon, a Chicago Tribune reporter from 1976 to 2009, is the author of seven poetry collections. His latest, Every Marred Thing: A Time in America, was the winner of the 2024 Faulkner-Wisdom Prize from the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner Society of New Orleans (Lavender Ink). He is a six-time nominee in poetry for a Pushcart Prize. His poetry has appeared in America, RHINO, Commonweal, Long Poem, After Hours, Autumn Sky, Burningword Literary Journal and other journals.