Supplication for the Hinge.

Clark, George David

Supplication for the Hinge

   Cardea, Roman goddess of hinges, thresholds, and handles, bless
      the broken
   hinge on the hatch door of a tree house, once cynosure

   of the Suwannee's west bank, now long disremembered under a
      mantle
   of Spanish moss; and bolster the hinges of the Dutch stall doors
      in a stable in Kansas,

   the top half of one opened just before dawn by a girl in a cotton
      nightgown
   who's left her bed in the ranch house and crossed the wet grass

   on bare feet, who holds out an apple to the palomino
      Sweettooth,
   lifting, in turn, his head from the shadows, snorting, the slow fog
      of horsebreath

   rising in the light of the single lantern that hangs at the saddle
      rack
   among the many saddles, bridles, and halters; in cold Tacoma

   sustain the hinges of the cafe doors that bring men in galoshes
   out of the rain; and on the Tennessee outhouse grown over with
      kudzu

   remember each rusted hinge; grease those on the widow's cellar
      door,
   not to wake her each time they cry open on their own in her
      house

   in the Texas hills; and make holy the hinge of a book's spine in
      Jersey,
   the book a tall man opens one January evening and steps
      through into the wild space

   of its pages; renew the knee hinges of the distance runner,
      crossing the county line
   in the sweet violence of the Arkansas sun; and among the cattails
      listing

   in the breeze off Lake Cedar, protect the pair of gossamer hinges
   on the back of the green dragonfly, the quicksilver doors they
      open

   and open in the air; consecrate the hinge a man makes with a
      woman
   while it sleets in Milwaukee, rattling in its frame the jammed
      door to eternity

   as they shudder their wooden headboard against the wall; and
      speed on the clouds
   turning above the Connecticut farmer, swinging back their sky
      doors

   on the Great Bear, on the North Star, on the orange moon for a
      moment
   as it rolls and drifts above the churchyard cemetery and those
      hundred hard doors

   in the ground; and here, Cardea, in this snowbound Virginia,
      attend the hinge
   of my shoulders, my bowed head, keep me opening and closing
      line after line.