Doug Roy, Yellow House, Cut Paper
Mason at San Xavier Del Bac Mission
A broad chested man climbs scaffolding stairs
with measured steps, maybe a little weary,
and pauses at the last landing
resting his arms on the outer rail,
as one might from the balcony of his own palace
soaking in the fading dark, the cold air,
when decisions lay ahead.
I am wondering if he is Tohono O’odam
or Mexican, or even Navajo
as he looks toward the hill of crosses
slowly scanning downward until
his eyes settle on me
standing alone in the parking lot
and I cannot hide my delight
raising my arm above my head to say hello.
Instead of ignoring me to keep his dawn to himself,
he raises his palm at the end of a great arm
and returns my smile.
Out of gratitude, or politeness
I turn away first, and he mounts the last stairs.
While the dark bells behind him are still and silent,
asleep like roosting brothers in their keep,
he rouses the pulley bearings into song,
ringing in the walls of the sheave wheel
against the weight on both ends
of the suddenly taut rope
that doesn’t know up from down
but follows the will of his hands
which have also, somehow, drawn back
the heavy curtain of night above the valley
while hoisting the day’s first bucket of plaster.
In the first rays the adobe facade is warm orange
and the sky its perfect blue complement,
clean, emptied of stars.
And in the newness of the day and the repair work
my eye makes him into a polished gem
held tight to the building
in a delicate bezel of galvanized pipes.
___________
Jessie Reid
Review by Bruce Parker
Great detail and use of syntax to guide the line breaks. The bells “sleep like roosting brothers in their keep,” a fine image implying both human, perhaps Franciscan, brothers and at the same time birds. The speaker “turn[s] away first” “out of gratitude, or politeness,” a nice touch of self-awareness. The complexity of the pulley that draws the plaster up is well-drawn, and suggests the activity of the bells when they are awake.