Poem for Saturday, January 18, 2014

To Explain Venus to a Mongolian

I remember the night the three of us walked through
the dust back from a small shop hollowed out in
battered Soviet concrete. Little Orgil, pig-tailed and
smiling, cupped an apple that seemed far too
large for his hands. That bright star, I told
his father pointing northward, is not a star at all.
At this, we stopped. The sky was a black sheet.
What do you mean, he asked. To explain
Venus to a Mongolian, it is best if your words
are like our own planet--a bit broken, spinning
in circumlocution, simple in the grand scheme.
Tell them that we live in the third world from
the sun. Then tell them that what they believed
was a star for their whole life is the second world
from the sun. Wait for them to ask Really? 
as per their custom. What I remember most was
his amazement, the moment of his comprehension.
How he gazed down at his son, face sticky
with fruit, and felt the need to take his tiny hand
in the dark.