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To wait, to hope. The verb conjugated: I wait. She waits. I never waited. Not as long as my mother waited for a man to come around to loving where he should. Past tense. Present tense: I waited. I wait. Nothing perfect in the present perfect: I have waited. Until I couldn’t anymore. Despair won out; hope let go. Short words: I hope; I wait. One syllable tinged with eternity. In the continuous present: I am waiting. In the negative: I am not. I did not wait. Why didn’t I? Why didn’t you insist? Indicative and interrogative, still the negative. And anyway, I want to know, indicative of what? Grammar’s terms define our terms: Demonstrative, Passive, Possessive. I did not think before that grammar was so emotional. I line up my tenses: Perfect and Imperfect. I’m in the mood to remember, So let’s not forget the Subjunctive: if I were waiting. What if I were? What if leads to Conditional. Let’s try another language. Esperar. Three syllables, an infinitive that holds hope and waiting. In Spanish, to hope, to wait, the same word. Esperar, a lingering word. Esperamos. We wait; we hope. No fatalism there that says we wait in vain. No, our fate is to wait, with hope. Querer. To want. Also means to love. Murmuring “te quiero” I remember that I love and want you. A wisdom here in this language that reflects our passion. Who ever thought of grammar as passionate? I have a confession. I like to diagram sentences. All those lines, like rays, shooting from the core— the subject and the verb— creating order. I like to classify, to categorize. I need to know what happened between you and me. Note the correct use of the object of the preposition. Not I, but me. Not we. The sentence, “I wait” is dull. Intransitive verb. No adjectives or adverbs to modify. But we can modify that phrase. A well-placed adverb enlivens our text: I stupidly wait. We can play with word order, order up a different mood. I wait hopefully. I voice my hope. The passive voice won’t work here. I have been waited cannot be, showing that meaning defeats the logic of grammar. This somehow saddens me. Let’s throw in a misplaced modifier to lighten my mood. It always works. “Gasoline will not be sold to people in glass containers.” A true story: I saw the sign every time I paid for gas, until some literalist needing gas came along. The text is true. People in glass containers cannot buy gas. They can only wait. They can hope. We can wait for them. Can, a potential word. Must, Should, Might: a special category of verbs in English: Modals. Not like any other verbs. Absent of infinitive. no “to should”, “to must.” Irregular pasts, like mine, like yours. What is the past tense of I should? What is the past, tense of regret? Enough of words, too easy to hide behind. Oh, but let’s still talk of hope. The subject is eternal. Long ago, Prometheus gave fire to man and woman. With this gift, we changed from lump of earth to creatures who use words to ease our souls. Then this far-seeing and lonely god, “sowed in man blind hopes.” Chained to a rock for his strange sympathy for us, creatures of a day, Prometheus must wait. If the gods can wait, so must we. Why couldn’t I? From the gods we learn to wait. We learn to use the future tense, tense of hope. 1996 |
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Premiere Issue (Issue #1), June, 1998 :
Santa Fe Poetry Broadside.