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The Secret Cup 1/13/2007 Chip Spann enters, the vanguard, just ahead of Dennis Hock who is parking his own car just out in front of the bookstore. They've been working on making Dennis' new book, the first title from the Sutter Writers in 2007. Just 10 made--so far--and I'm flattered deeper, fuller than I can express that they think to come here first, the glue still setting on the spines. The Secret Cup: Poems of Grief and Healing.I always like to approach a book from any direction but the front. I find this poem first: January 6, 1956 by Dennis Hock Mourners can't look at the children. Most stare down at the ground, a few gaze up at the headless vapor trail of a jet climbing into the sun. Nana pinches Hail Marys between her thumb and forefinger, the sorrowful mysteries bloom like black roses on her silent lips as the priest mumbles Latin against the hard morning air. she is in that box -- they say she is looking down from heaven but it took six men to carry it here -- she is in that box Somewhere a plum wash of dawn sky spreads over a dark plane of water. But here it is all earth. And then the spadeful. And then the words are over, and the mourners return to their cars, putting on dark glasses against the sharp glint of windshields, and chrome bumpers. As the father guides his four children from the grave they feel their bodies pulling up like birds backing higher into the sky, their wings flapping away from the casket buffed and silver and gleaming like a huge bullet embedded in the dark green turf.
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