calling

CallingAuthor(s): Don JohnsonSource: The Iowa Review, Vol. 20, No. 1 (Winter, 1990), pp. 97-99Published by: University of IowaStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20152962 .

Accessed: 10/06/2014 17:29

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

University of Iowa is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The Iowa Review.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 62.122.79.37 on Tue, 10 Jun 2014 17:29:25 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=uiowa

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20152962?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Moored, he would sink thick chunks of red meat,

like bait for world-record catfish,

and watch the bloodlines spiral down to where

a boy waited in his fathomable yard for the gospel of aluminum cans, messages

stamped on the bellies of lost lures.

Under clouds scattered on the calm lake, the town

would reassemble itself as in a film

time-lapsed backwards. Streets would shrug off

decades of mud, houses settle on their washed foundations,

and as townspeople scuttled into habits,

trucks would ease out of store lots and service stations,

backing toward Bristol, Johnson City and Elizabethton,

returning their undelivered loads of newspapers

and salt, hymnals and dried beans, work shoes,

fine sugar and loaf after white loaf of Rainbo Bread.

Calling

for Bill Levin

It had been a lark, after dinner

and too much wine, to shepherd

my puzzled guests beyond the porchlight's ragged arc

to the woodlot's edge where I would whistle softly for the owls. Tennessee's own

good ole boy of Winander,

I would listen, then warble

the uvular trill they always answered when the whistle

failed.

97



With each pause between calls, they would close in

then suddenly flutter out

against a sky the heavy dark

beneath our trees made luminous.

Or they would light invisibly in wet branches, showering

us with rain as they did

the night you were here.

After the others had gone, we stood beneath the poplars while the houselights went out.

You told me you had finally connected, found the woman

you could talk with all night, that you played guitar and sang together in bed

after making love.

But tonight you call me

from Boston saying she can't

be reached. She's hung up twice

and taken her phone off the hook.

What can I do, living half my life

long distance, but tell you to try again in the morning?

It isn't enough.

Disconnected, I wander outside

and call to the owls: whistle

and pause, warble and wait

again and again. But the woods'

only response is the chirr

of dry leaves the wind moves,

98



backed by the fading hiss of tires two miles off

along the four-lane. After

I darken the house, lock up

and lie down beside the woman

you tell me I should love more,

the owl's call comes, like a foal's

faint whinny through blowing snow ?

an answer.

I'm not sure

what it means, but something out there is listening, coming back

in its own dark need in its own

time. Is it that simple? I'll call you tomorrow and we'll talk.

99



calling

Documents