Ghosts on the Road by David Rivard

View this email on a browser Forward to a friend January 6, 2015   Ghosts on the Road   David Rivard

A bookkeeping man, tho one sure to knock on wood, and mostly light   at loose ends—my friend who is superstitiously funny, & always sarcastic—save once,   after I’d told him about Simone’s first time walking—a toddler,   almost alone, she’d gripped her sweater, right hand clutched   chest-high, reassured then, she held on to herself so, so took a few   quick steps— oh, he said, you know what? Leonard Cohen, when he was 13,   after his father’s out-of-the-blue heart attack, he slit one of the old man’s   ties, & slipped a message into it, then buried it in his backyard—   73 now, he can’t recall what he wrote—(threadbare heartfelt prayer perhaps,   or complaint)— his first writing anyway. The need to comfort   ourselves is always strongest at the start, they say—   do you think that’s true? my friend asked. I don’t, he said,   I think the need gets stronger, he said, it just gets stronger.            Copyright © 2015 by David Rivard. Used with permission of the author. About This Poem   “Sometimes two people speak to each other across distances of space, time, and character, and actually hear each other. It happens. For the record, by ‘bookkeeping man’ I meant someone who is ‘making book’—the guy who is laying odds, not an accountant.” —David Rivard   David Rivard is the author of Otherwise Elsewhere (Graywolf Press, 2011). He teaches at the University of New Hampshire and lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Most Recent Book by Rivard   Otherwise Elsewhere (Graywolf Press, 2011) "Let’s Get Out of Here" by Corey Zeller "Whose Story of Us We Is Told Is Us" by Shane McCrae "Ghost Elephants" by Jean Valentine Poem-a-Day   Launched during National Poetry Month in 2006, Poem-a-Day features new and previously unpublished poems by contemporary poets on weekdays and classic poems on weekends. Thanks for being a part of the Academy of American Poets community. To learn about other programs, including National Poetry Month, Poem in Your Pocket Day, the annual Poets Forum, and more, visit Poets.org.   You are receiving this e-mail because you elected to subscribe to our mailing list. If you would like to unsubscribe, please click here.   © Academy of American Poets 75 Maiden Lane, Suite 901, New York, NY 10038