Twain

He whitewashed nothing. He would let others
Brush those broad boards. He was one who listened,
Who knew all the reasons for together,
Understood even then that we were brothers.
He used his canny craft, his utmost art,
To pry midnight windows open, elope
With shadows into inclement weather.
He thought it best perhaps to lie when hope
Was waning. But I know his deepest heart
Charted and chose paths where sunlight glistened,
Pointed out the pools where dark things gather.
His pen shaded for us the smutty tinge
Of twilight’s end. Who wouldn’t rather
Follow his footsteps into the cave, singe
Our fingers on his tallow taper’s fringe,
Opening our ears to his honest voice.
A sly whistle, an owl’s call, a choice.
Huck’s drunk pap, prim Aunt Polly, Injun Joe:
Wide wilderness where everyone must go.

Huck

He was the orphan of the river
Who fled his pap and dragged a cornmeal
Sack down to the water and the hidden
Boat. Thief of life, he let it drift
Him home. Now we too thread that needle,
Find the naked nonesuch, we must never
Leave our raft. We have always to conceal
Our shade, our darkie, everything forbidden,
All that we watched, all that we loved,
All that we insisted was a riddle.

Jim

The serpent shrugs and twists himself a twin.
Hooking his jawline on a jut of twig
He writhes until he leaves a wraith of skin.

Jim knew that he had gotten powerful big,
Too big for widow women who must sell
Doughty desire downriver. But to doff
The skin that he had grown to fit so well
Wasn’t in him nor nature. So Jim run off.

The island wasn’t part of either bank.
Jim hid and fished. He fished and hid. He built
A camp inside a cave. He thought to thank
A God who had the gall to give him guilt.

Drowning in darkness, waking to a boat,
Cannon fire, conjuring a ghost whose slight
Shade shadowed his own blackness. Then afloat,
Rafting the river together, midnight
Errants, drifting dusk to dawn, friend to friend,
On that raft, fated to be free, oppressed
Patient prisoners like us.

                                                   In the end
Huck left to join the savage in the West.
The river cleft the country, disappeared.
The author captured everyone but Jim
Whose freedom only caused him to be feared
By the same frauds who’d hoped to frighten him.
Jim was no snake. He couldn’t shed his skin.
Some stories end so others can begin.

Tom

After all that innocence, that soft
Admission, the guileless guilt he bore
Loving her, then it was just not right
They should wander lonely in the cave
And have their candle fade.  In the night
He chanted spells, sent his bated breath
Into the darkness, finally found
Fear and shame too in unhallowed ground.
Clambering  out of his watery grave,
Creeping like a wraith to the church door,
On stalking feet to the holy loft,
The relict rejoiced at his own death.

Drawn from the Mississippi, Twain's weight
Pulls us all back to childhood.  There we 
Wield the whitewash brush, fish the dead rat
From our empty pockets and find just
One piece of raveled string.  But that
Is enough.  
                      Then in the glad glowing
Of the springtime, we remember all:
The golden mornings and the curt call
Of the owl throb in the dark.  We must
Always long for what used to be
But never was, always be too late
To gaze and glory at our going.