I'm at the sink, rinsing dishes, and the television is going. I hear some non-English language, at first I think it's French. Some phrases that I understand. Then I realize-- Danish. It's some horror series about blood and hospitals that I can't imagine goes over well on Danish public television. Which is maybe why it's on the Independent Film Channel. But I listen for a while, making out a few simple sentences. It's comforting to hear the rhythm of it, the inflections. But I can't follow the dialogue without subtitles. No way. And a ghost of some old panic rises up in my stomach, reminding me of news broadcasts and street corner babble that I could never understand. When I first got back to the U.S. I loved t.v. news -- probably the first and last time ever: "They actually *read* you the news?" And I still oddly cherish bits of overheard conversation.

7/27/2001 10:21:43 AM

i cried in a church in vienna, virginia
the choir was singing
i don't remember what.
a presbytarian church,
and i'm roman catholic
but those lines
are such low fences
though we never look across.
--it's like culture, an accent
sounds like ignorance,
really just means
this isn't my language,
and why should it be?

i didn't know why i was crying
no knots in my chest or my head
to cry about
the choir was singing
and maybe it was them,
resonating
one big song
but i never heard the words.

i explained it later
this teary incident
as:

"i've never cried about denmark."

but if i were going to cry
about denmark, then wouldn't it
hurt?
wouldn't i be crumpled inside
you know, like usual?

it was
about denmark.

the raw fact.

standing with some
aura of thank-you-God
pouring from a congregation.
with the friends i didn't want to leave.

"what is it about that song that got you?"

i didn't know.
i don't know.

thankful --
there's a word i can't
pin down.
like creeley said: "god shed his grace on thee--
how abstract is that fucking fact."
how do you say,
in any language,
may i never forget
what i hated to learn.
thank you for this pain,
thank you for this day.

7/17/2001 10:51:49 AM

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