CHAMBER MUSIC

PART I

Child Visionary

I

                                        A back door through which, less
                                        than a year ago, I was not allowed
                                        to pass alone. Out onto the cement step
                                        and, stooping from the heavens, I looked
                                        at the ground. The earth and the grass,
                                        the miniature forests densely populated
                                        by real dinosaurs. Breathing, animate,
                                        miniature Brontosaurus, Trachodon,
                                        Tryceratops, Tyrannosaurus, and all
                                        their kin. They were distinct
                                        from insects. And I knew what
                                        had become of the dinosaurs.
                                        They had not disappeared, they
                                        had shrunk. The entire Mesozoic era
                                        lay in miniature outside our back
                                        door step. I hastened to inform
                                        the world. “Those are bugs,” my parents
                                        insisted. I went out to look again
                                        but there was ice upon the ground.

II

                                        Lying in bed, sleeping, I sneak
                                        outside to play on the swingset.
                                        Up the ladder and, instead
                                        of riding down the slide, I
                                        take off, flying over the maple tree.
                                        Drifting and soaring through the air
                                        like a kid who discovered the
                                        neutralizing agent for gravity. I
                                        told the world of my flight, and
                                        the world said I was dreaming.
                                        I climbed the ladder and rode down
                                        the slide. Looking up at the maple,
                                        it and I knew that I had seen it
                                        from other perspectives.

III

                                        At my friends’ house. Their mother
                                        would call them in after dusk, urging
                                        me to hurry on home. I would linger
                                        in the gathering darkness, and something would happen
                                        in the front yard, beneath the lawn.
                                        An image would appear, coming up from the ground.
                                        Pictures in black and white, complete with sound.
                                        It was always a Roy Rogers’ movie. I was no fan
                                        of Roy Rogers, but I would watch the credits
                                        and the first couple scenes before pedaling
                                        my bike home. I figured the neighborhood
                                        was built on an old drive-in theater, and this
                                        was where the screen lay buried. If I
                                        could have located the projection booth,
                                        then perhaps I could have changed the film
                                        for a Johnny Weismuller Tarzan, or a Marx Brothers’
                                        flick. I never told anyone; it was too
                                        preposterous. I watched the movie by myself
                                        but never stayed to see the end,
                                        much less the second feature.
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