Golden Shovel with lines from Larry Levis’s The Widening Spell of the Leaves

Your teacher wrote about the soughing wind. Then . . .
A story begins. Mine begins with the red sky that
Graced the snow-topped mountains of Kosovo. We rode with someone
Whose name was Daris, a teacher who had
Cousins to visit across the range. He cast
Sad eyes at my young wife & our baby. He spoke a
Language which was a version of a near country like a spell.
But not exactly that of the driver, who seemed to scoff. I
Slept as we all did, till we met the border guards, did
I watch them push Daris down to his knees? Not
A word ne a the driver repeated in the guard’s language. I know
Our passports saved us. Once in childhood
I remember the Toledo police lined us up—it was
In late spring—made us lean against a garage as they searched a
House that had been robbed. They said words to us like a spell
I didn’t understand as they interrogated my friend’s older brother or
Perhaps it was the word of that old white woman that
Called us names. He told them to fuck themselves. The cuffs clicked, then
He was gone. Daris’ journey ended there
At the border, we drove on without regret. The driver had
Spat out the window as we pulled away. I had been
To the fields where the graves were not marked, another
Village where the children spoke different languages, spelled
Their names in different alphabets, wrote too
How the bullets cracked concrete. How shells shattered a quiet
Schoolnight, burned the red roofs of their homes—to
Wake up as a child to the sound of machine gun fire. Hear,
I said, the wind, the soughing wind, how it is entering
Your lungs. How it can carry us like paper-kites, or my
Friends, what is this minor chorded music we must manage? In the city,
The students sang the same Pop songs, but entering
The classroom they still side-eyed each other warily. They wrote the
Names of their dead. Made lists of wishes. Turned dust
Into sunflowers, wrote obliquely of their parents’ war. We
Did not know about tomorrow, one girl wrote. But here we are.