Poem: To my two sons!

By Arian Galdini

This world

first notices

those who pass lightly before the eye,

not those

who leave the earth heavier.

Not as two boys

to be kept too long from the day’s dust,

from false light,

from that ease

that lets a man be seen

before he has become himself.

I see you as two names

on whom time,

without sound, without sign, without ceremony,

has begun to rest its hand.

David.

Martin.

Two names the day calls lightly,

but time knows their weight,

like bells kept under the ground

until their voice

gathers weight.

Now you come lightly into the house

with childhood still loose in your step,

but one day

you will go out before the world

not as small sounds

the wind can carry off,

but as something meant to bear,

to hold,

not to give way,

not to break,

not to do harm.

From the door.

From the glass.

From the spoon.

From the shoes

that keep, in silence, the shape of yesterday’s step.

From the lace

that must not trail at the threshold.

And from the ball on the floor,

which stops being only a ball

and becomes the world

held in the hand.

With stone.

With bread divided in poverty.

With roofs held up not only by beams

but by hands that would not let them fall.

With the mountain

that carries dawn on its back

without asking light its name.

With the river

that moves all day

and still keeps

the face of the sky.

With bread

that, even when there is little of it,

keeps the law of sharing.

With the threshold,

where a man steps out of what comes easy in him

and enters

what has weight.

Before the yard

draws its first breath,

before the window

catches light on the glass,

before the spoon finds the cup

and the day begins

to call itself day,

morning enters the house.

It comes over the bread left from supper,

over the cup of water,

over the pane still pale with dawn,

over the shoes

that keep, in silence,

the shape of yesterday’s step,

over the ball at the threshold,

as over a small thing

that does not yet know

its own name.

Martin comes first.

In him movement rises like breath,

like something that cannot stay long

inside itself.

His foot gives the ball

that small push

that sends the world

out of stillness

before it makes a sound.

The ball moves one step.

David says nothing.

His foot comes down over it

before the whole world

can reach the cup.

The water shivers,

but does not spill.

The cup lifts a little from the edge,

then settles back.

The boundary has moved.

Then the ball comes back.

His foot holds it a moment.

Then the wall takes it.

Later the bread falls.

Not with tragedy.

Not with noise.

But the way things fall

that carry life,

when the hand is still learning

its own weight.

The bread is lifted.

Set back in place.

Then the crumbs are gathered in the palm,

carried to the window,

opened for the birds.

Someone bends.

A little farther off,

a shoelace lies untied at the threshold.

Two fingers take it up.

Eyelet by eyelet,

the knot finds its form.

No eye leans in.

No voice is raised.

Nothing is written down for this.

Then comes what has no face.

It comes like light without warmth.

Like a voice trying to come

between you and yourselves.

Like sight broken too soon

to know how to see.

A voice comes from the other room,

quick,

sharp,

like something trying to enter between you

unasked.

Martin picks up the ball

with both hands.

For a moment

his whole body leans forward.

At his temple

a thin vein lifts.

David stays still.

One hand rises a little.

Then falls.

He only watches.

The ball falls again to the floor.

The cup remains.

The water remains.

The threshold remains.

The house knows:

not everything that did not break

came through untouched.

Neither of them speaks.

This water

that trembled

and did not spill.

Arian Galdini