Carl Dennis: The God Who Loves You

It must be troubling for the god who loves you
To ponder how much happier you’d be today
Had you been able to glimpse your many futures.
It must be painful for him to watch you on Friday evenings
Driving home from the office, content with your week—
Three fine houses sold to deserving families—
Knowing as he does exactly what would have happened
Had you gone to your second choice for college,
Knowing the roommate you’d have been allotted
Whose ardent opinions on painting and music
Would have kindled in you a lifelong passion.
A life thirty points above the life you’re living
On any scale of satisfaction. And every point
A thorn in the side of the god who loves you.
You don’t want that, a large-souled man like you
Who tries to withhold from your wife the day’s disappointments
So she can save her empathy for the children.
And would you want this god to compare your wife
With the woman you were destined to meet on the other campus?
It hurts you to think of him ranking the conversation
You’d have enjoyed over there higher in insight
Than the conversation you’re used to.
And think how this loving god would feel
Knowing that the man next in line for your wife
Would have pleased her more than you ever will
Even on your best days, when you really try.
Can you sleep at night believing a god like that
Is pacing his cloudy bedroom, harassed by alternatives
You’re spared by ignorance? The difference between what is
And what could have been will remain alive for him
Even after you cease existing, after you catch a chill
Running out in the snow for the morning paper,
Losing eleven years that the god who loves you
Will feel compelled to imagine scene by scene
Unless you come to the rescue by imagining him
No wiser than you are, no god at all, only a friend
No closer than the actual friend you made at college,
The one you haven’t written in months. Sit down tonight
And write him about the life you can talk about
With a claim to authority, the life you’ve witnessed,
Which for all you know is the life you’ve chosen.

Carl Dennis: Silent Manners

Before you invest in a book on manners,
Better make sure it contains a chapter
On keeping silent, one to remind you,
When you pull off on the shoulder
Of a country road to ask directions,
Not to ask the elderly man in overalls,
Who crosses the field to greet you,
Why he isn't wearing a hat on a day so sunny.
If the sun has deepened the ruts in his face,
It's too late now to stop it, the chapter reasons,
And why remind him how much he's aged?

And if you notice blood-vessel cobwebs
Beneath his eyes—for you a sure sign of drinking
Over many years—the same chapter will warn you
Not to suggest, however gently, that help
Is available if he wants to stop. Who knows
What escape you might have tried
If you'd had his worries:
The flooding and drought and heavy mortgage,
The doctor's bills he'll never see the end of.

Already you owe him something for the reticence
That keeps him from asking, when you tell him
You're on your way to visit an old friend,
Why you've come so seldom you can't recall
If you're anywhere near the turnoff.
"You can't miss it," he simply says,
"Three miles straight ahead at the stand of sweet gum,"
And when your doubtful look suggests
You can't tell a sweet-gum tree from a hemlock,
He fishes a pencil out of his bib pocket
And sketches its shape so deftly
You're certain you'd know it anywhere,

So deftly you'll need to resist the urge to ask
If he ever considered a career in art.
If he didn't, it's too late now to begin. If he did,
But then decided against it, why finger that wound?
Keep silent and show how grateful you are
For his not asking what work you do
That's so important it's justified letting a friendship
Thin to a shadow of what it was.

Then it's time to thank him and drive off,
Glad you haven't asked him about the beautiful
Sunrises and sunsets he must be able to witness
Above the hills to the east and west.
It's best to avoid a compliment that might remind him
Of the difference between watching a sunset
With the friends who used to watch beside him
And watching now.