Old Mossy Moon

Thawing Out

2012-01-31T18:17:00.000-08:00

I’m being
unfaithful
to nature –

coming out of
dormancy early,
splitting into
two halves,
and sending
up flowers…

The sun says
I can live forever,
even if the crows
around me fall
to the earth
in silent
ambivalence.

Quinta Essentia

2012-01-08T13:36:00.000-08:00

The smell of oak moss and lichens
from the corner of your bungalow,
lingers on my skin like balsam and
sanctifies me in this winter light -
allowing me to respire ancient air
from a distant and temperate wood.

The universe holds nothing more that can heal me;
clary sage, lavender, cedar bark, resin of myrrh -
not even the holiest of chrisms could offer more.

On Being Human

2011-10-15T12:09:00.000-07:00

i am changing colors
like the leaves…
claret, pale orange,
butter colored -
and falling through the
atmosphere, drifting down
through the ages

landing upside down
at the foot of a statue
standing in the commons
forgotten by children

and here are my tears
streaming on ivory faces
in all the places
that come to mind
when the skies are
filled with bare branches
and stars that shine
down on every thought
that threatens to unpin me

what can i tell you -
that i don’t feel pain
that my mind is stable
that prayers are answered
that life is fair
that a heart doesn’t break
that everything will be alright
that God is watching over us?

For Now

2011-05-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

I had given up on spring
when you called me to the
kitchen window to show me
the orioles in the quince bush,
like small brilliant suns -
buoyant and cheerful.

Watching them,
I tried not to think
about the mountain birds,
with their dark shiny eyes
like tiny glass marbles,
and their somber evening calls
heard from clear across the river –
where they roosted shadowy
in the branches of the redbud,
some missing parts of their
hind wings or tails,
proving that life is hard
in the upper Alleghenies.

Even on this dismal,
cool and rainy spring morning,
I’ll not think about the cold
that got inside of me there –

For now,
I’ll take pleasure in
our delight of the orioles,
so busy with the quince blossoms,
they hardly notice
our smiling faces at the window -
or our love for them that leaps
and bounds from somewhere deep.

MORIBUNDITY

2011-01-21T07:51:00.000-08:00

away from the creamy
smear of a gibbous moon

I hide myself in Shakespeare’s
coat sleeve breathing only

when I remember to breathe
and coming out only to eat

the stale offerings from
an old man’s crooked hand

High Lonesome

2011-01-03T14:50:00.000-08:00

"High Lonesome"

watercolor by Terry Clark

Winter comes effortlessly
on the High Lonesome Ranch,
where the snow piles up -
white on white,
and the elk scream,
in the frozen pine forests,
like banshees.

I imagine what it would be like
to stay there in the cabin -
enduring the brief ghosts

of miners, cowboys, and outlaws
humming in the corners.

I’d see the stars arranging
themselves around the
windows at night,
and resting on the trellises,
as if they were the white
and lavender Columbines
of summer.

And in the utter stillness,
I’d hold the moon close
to my breast and listen,
over and over again,
to the rising silence
of my thoughts.

A WINTER'S NIGHT

2010-12-08T18:18:00.000-08:00

A WINTER'S NIGHT

Out in the pasture,
the cows
are wide-eyed
and bellowing,
as a flock
of birds wheel
in the snowy
air above them -
like a multitude
of holy angels
in the December sky.

Now, everything
becomes a promise –
the smell of hay,
the curl of smoke,
the icy fern along
the frosted path,
the kitchen where
the sausages are
hung high and the
walnuts are crushed
and sugared - where
warm gingerbread
steams the windows,
blurring the moon.

And night’s breath
breathes on us again
in our deep slumber,
as the cows lumber
in silent resolution
into the warmth and
light of the little barn.

MAP ME AGAIN FREDRIK AND PIET

2010-11-14T10:04:00.000-08:00

MAP ME AGAIN FREDRIK AND PIET

Out here on the celestial equator,
I am Monoceros, a faint constellation
barely visible among the brightest stars
that shine radiantly from the great circle.

I go practically unnoticed - like blood
seeping through the reddest terracotta,
or like minor chords being played slowly,
woefully over an elegiac reading of some
dejected and plaintive poet…

I want to be mapped again by the Dutch.
Instead of a shy unicorn – I want to be a lion,
an eagle, a bear, or a glittery whale
spouting water, like crushed diamonds,
around an imaginary sphere of infinite extent,
tilting and swimming in all directions at once.

I want to be on a different quadrant of an astrolabe,
a fresh copper engraving, pictured in a star atlas -
or just clearly visible on a plastic plansiphere
that rests deep in the pocket of an old woman,
who has designed her days by studying the stars.

Walt Whitman's Death Mask

2010-11-07T14:55:00.000-08:00

WALT WHITMAN'S DEATH MASK

You started out superbly.
No one was more gifted or blessed.
You called yourself
a freakish character,
saying it was “damnable”
to be tailorized after a mode.
So, come on – admit it
you were a little Rabelaisian!

You were one of those big sprawlers –
your masterful words never touching
the lines of the white ruled paper
upon which you so liberally wrote.

You were a winger too -
an open-air man,
whose feet were
never really needed
for traveling.

Wasn’t it just yesterday that you
lolled in your high board bed,

over on Mickle Street -
eating pickled peaches
out of a blue glass jar,
while listening to sounds
from the street below?

And now your face
is all repose, and sweetly so,
with eyes closed and lips tight
and your splendid head
at its noblest and most serene.

LIKE, COOL MAN - HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

2010-10-31T08:45:00.000-07:00

HAPPY HALLOWEEN ALL YOU CRAZY CATS!

HAVE A BOSS, CHROME-PLATED NIGHT!

WHO GOES HOWLING

2010-10-20T19:52:00.000-07:00

Who goes howling without a key -
a plot, a scheme, a mystery?
Knots are tied and knots unraveled
along a road that’s highly traveled,
winding in some mysterious way,
puzzling pedestrians night and day,
while water cries and wind speaks
and frost makes roses of our cheeks.
And who’s the potter and who’s the pot?
And which is the vessel and which is not?
For these queries, avow – avow!
The answers are being written now
on onionskin paper, smooth and light -
on sleeveless arms, ghostly white -
on leaves rustling on far away trees -
on hills and in hollows, such as these.

PENDING

2010-10-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

I can’t help thinking
that I would feel at home
in the closed off hives
under the pear trees,
in amber stillness,
in the warm wax cells -
there to live a life of
sweetness and daylight.
But – somehow, I survive
in a dim aging cellar,
where the spirits settle
among the oak barrels
that rise in the darkness
like communal hunchbacks,
awaiting clarification.

A LOVELY WHILING AWAY

2010-10-03T17:36:00.000-07:00

Turning circles
and pocketing stones,
we were more astonished
than we had ever been
by the sweet leaves,
and dry golden corn,
and the flowers
offering up their seeds –
and the white horse,
standing motionless,
in the stark pasture,
a hawk’s reflection
appearing in his big old eye –
their precious spirits
merging interminably.

In the wind, we heard
the weeping and laughter
of the fiddles and banjos,
harmonicas and mandolins,
and we danced along
for a little while in the grass,
under yellow gingko leaves,
eating wild grapes and
hard, sweet apples.
Toward home, at dusk,
there was only the
low hum of our voices -
the intimate press of our hands.

DEAR EUGENE

2010-09-23T15:05:00.001-07:00

Guest poet, Chloe Gilbert

Chloe rode on a train from Southern Virginia to Northern Pennsylvania, recently. One of the passengers, a kindly old gentleman sitting across the aisle, caught Chloe's imagination. She said he wore a bow tie and had the kindest face. They never spoke, but Chloe felt that he was someone special - she even felt a certain kinship toward him. Then, just as she garnered enough courage to make conversation at a stop in D.C., he stood up and departed the train.

We have all wondered about strangers that have traveled with us on trains, buses, planes....we come up with life scenarios for them. It is a poet's past time. Right?

This poem was churned from Chloe's thoughts, while traveling on the train.

DEAR EUGENE

I can’t help
but sneak a peak;
What spell have you
cast over me?

At a glace, to have felt so meek -

From your unintended presence,
I cannot break free.

Have you traveled far?
Could it be that you
are wondering as well,

If my story is just as spectacular

As your story in my mind dwells?

Inside, mindless masses hurry in a blunder,

As the world beside us both passes,

Creating even more magic and wonder -
Empowering my will to leap and ask.

Alas! You are now escaping this
Metal monster and leaving me behind.

Thank you sweet stranger
Whom I will never forget,
For leaving me soft and kind.

THIS VAGUE FEELING

2010-09-12T08:18:00.000-07:00

A vague feeling
has arisen in me,
with no real meaning
that I can think of -
and apart from any idea
I might have had recently,
but truly affecting and moving,
as with any other vision in life.

It prompts my mind to toil -
all thoughts tendrilling upwards
and outwards, trying to catch
somewhere - and take hold.

My mind fills with
some moonlit view
of barefoot wanderings,
and a distribution of figs
to the sick and dying –
their sweet, sticky lips
encrusted and tasting
of nothing but blood.

An odor of turpentine emits
from some dark alleyway,
where doors are open to show
dimly lit rooms divided by
unfinished canvasses,
wet with paint and going
white with mildew.

And there is not
an infinite number
of stars in the sky,
only a few large ones,
spinning and shining -
like dying martyrs,
and like living lovers,
eking out their incredible
days of pleasure and pain.

This vague feeling…
This stab in my heart.

MORNING HOUR

2010-09-03T18:15:00.000-07:00

MORNING HOUR

what warbler’s watery
trilling could ever entice
me from this sovereign light
and lure me into the shadowy
world of a mysterious thicket -

where each wary step is
infused with whispered
petitions and every sharp
thorn brings forth visible

and agonizing stigmata

First Day of School

2010-08-29T04:09:00.000-07:00

When I was a senior in high school, I think I missed the bus about 10 times a month. Dad had to drive me to school. Looking back now, I'm glad I missed it so much, because I had that precious one-on-one time with my dad, but - I digress.

Karen www.keepingsecrets-karen.blogspot.com is driving the Poetry Bus this week to school! So, I promised her I would try to be on time.

Oh, so many ways one could go with this, but I wanted to have FUN - since that was the way in which it was presented by our bus driver. I did write a poem for Karen about our WVTech days, but want to keep that for later in September, since it is a little more obscure. I hardly ever rhyme my verse and I really love to. So, with a jaunty wave out of the bus window, here I go...

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

School bell rings.
Grab your things.
Run to the gate.
Don’t be late!

Heart’s thumping.
Brain’s pumping.
Children weeping.
Mothers leaping.

Summer’s over.
Goodbye, Rover.
Hello fall,
And hallowed hall.

Find a chair.
Fix your hair.
Smile at friends,
Or just pretend.

Shiny shoes.
Pencils (number twos).
Heavy books.
Learning nooks.

Favorite teachers.
Some are creatures.
Principal’s tall.
Vice is small.

School lunches.
Hate them bunches.
PB&J,
Makes my day.

Dismissal Bell.
School’s swell.
Maybe, then,
I’ll go again!

FOR CHLOE

2010-08-25T13:17:00.000-07:00

I wrote this for my granddaughter, Chloe, who turned twenty years old this month. A few days after her birthday celebration with all the family, we had a little picnic at Bowman's Creek - just the two of us - chicken salad, homemade pickles, peaches, iced tea with limes. We had the place to ourselves that day. We had a good time sitting there by the water - talking about the past, wondering about the future. Chloe tells me the most interesting things, too. She amazes me, really. She has always lived away from us, but comes to stay here in the summer. So, our relationship is a special one. We have to pack a lot into those few weeks! While watching her wade out into the creek, singing to the fish - this poem was already forming. Oh, and Bowman's Creek is a place where we have always gone. We used to swim in the cold currents years ago and ride the "rapids" in an inner tube. I would take the kids all summer long, before the pool. We used to have big family picnics there, too. (Oh, those halcyon days of years ago.) I guess this seems like a big intro for a short poem, but - as you all know, I am all about brevity in my poetry...I try to say a lot in as few words as possible. Hopefully, it has worked here.

FOR CHLOE

The time of water is over
and most of our sun is gone -
wrapped in a filmy gauze
left over from our days of
sweet and soft iridescence.

But before that –
her skin had reflected water,
as she waded up to her knees
in the cold swirling creek,
singing to the fishes that hid
among the mossy ledges, imploring
them to eat bread from her hands.

And there, by the huge sycamores
that rose up mottled around us,
I felt like time had reeled back
and we were the universe again,
and we were the ancient mystery
that we had always been.

SUICIDE

2010-08-20T18:37:00.000-07:00

How much more
pain could you have
shown us –
pins holding your
brain in place,
as your fingers
separated fact
from fiction.

He hung like a robe
on the back of the
bathroom door -
nonchalant and dead,
you liked to say.

You claim that you
died, too, that night.
Are you sure
you weren't born –
pushed out of the hard
cold womb of anguish?

THE FOX

2010-08-12T17:35:00.000-07:00

It’s always about the light,
or the dissolution of shadows
and shade that makes it so.

Like the brightness
in the corner of the woods -
filtering down into the fields,

where standing amid the night
blossoms and summer grasses,
the unexpected fox shows himself

and his sweet vulnerability,
never realizing the small
disturbance he has become.

WHY MEDITATION DOESN'T WORK FOR ME

2010-07-28T20:03:00.000-07:00

WHY MEDITATION DOESN’T WORK FOR ME

While trying to discover
the realities and facets
of my spacious present,
I become camouflaged
in real physical time,
where senses become
distorted and where
all experience comes
from second-hand energy
and ordinary circumstances.

I am trying hard to stay
within my bony skull –
in order to travel outside
my plane of existence, but…

Can I help it if I am
obsessed with the theory
of beginning and end -
and that I conceive time
to be a series of moments?

OOOOOOOOMMMM…

BEYOND THE VEIL

2010-07-27T06:39:00.000-07:00

BEYOND THE VEIL

you mark your days
with rented doorways
and the heavy body
that ticks the hours
swinging on a cord –

this life…
extraordinary sorrow
and more –
a long and reluctant
letting go

IN PRAISE OF THE CROCUS

2010-03-28T11:47:00.000-07:00

IN PRAISE OF THE CROCUS

The pastel cultivars
emerge from their
underground
swollen corms
like chalices,
offering us communion
with the natural world.

THE DUAL

2010-02-26T15:58:00.000-08:00

The Dual

oil on canvas by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

THE DUAL

Something’s at me today -
a tearing of form,
a stitching of words,
a definition of hours,
like a quiet folding
or unfolding
of the thinnest paper.

It’s like sitting with my back
against my own back and
trying to wrest something
from the sweat of my skin
and the salt of my bones.

SHORTENING THE GAP

2010-02-16T16:40:00.000-08:00

SHORTENING THE GAP

All morning
I have been
watching doves -
covering a
silence of light
under their wings,
like a sacred secret,

while…

in the root cellar,
the beets bleed
from their constant
jostling in the bin,
cheeks pale and
withered now

and…

the potatoes, too -
with their wandering
eyes and mocking
grins, beg to be
buried again

now…

I find myself
thinking that
had my electrons
been arranged
just a little bit
differently, I might
have been a
mourning dove
hiding the light
under my wings

or…

a root vegetable
in a winter bin
spending my days
going soft in the head.

THIS ELATION

2010-02-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

THIS ELATION

This elation,
this sunlight after the snow,

and this page my lover,
because we are alone.

Look how the cypress trees
edge my thoughts and the

sweet smelling mimosa
peeks her delicate head

into my window to see me
under a canopy of dreams

of warmth and want - and
flowers that grow from

one world into the next,
their fragrance my desire.

Now, your kiss - a languid
fall into love all over again.

TRACKING LIFE

2010-02-01T16:46:00.000-08:00

TRACKING LIFE

My eyes are getting milky
from staring at the moon –
the snow moon that hangs
on the ice encrusted limbs
of flesh, muscle, and bone.
I was a young girl, once,
staring at a snow moon
out my bedroom window.
Its soft glow got inside
of me that night and somehow
I was able to carry the light
for a time. And the snow?
It melted inside my veins
and ran like sap in a maple,
clear and sweet and slow.

GET OVER IT

2010-01-16T08:21:00.000-08:00

GET OVER IT

In the gallery, completely
ignoring poor Alice Neel,
Richard’s at it again –
bouncing from wall to wall,
arms flailing, voice wailing
about Kasparov’s loss to
IBM’s computer, Deep Blue.
It cheated! He screams.
I want to shake him and say,
Come on Richard! Get over it!
It was just a freakin’ chess game!
But, he won’t listen to me.
He wouldn’t understand
what I was saying, anyway.
He doesn’t speak or hear in
English anymore. His language is
expressible and understandable
only by algebraic notations
and Boolean ones and zeros.

FROM THE CORNER OF A BLUE FOG LIFTING

2010-01-10T17:19:00.000-08:00

Charcoal Drawing of Walt Whitman by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

FROM THE CORNER OF A BLUE FOG LIFTING
~In Imitation and Praise of Walt Whitman~

From the corner of a blue fog lifting,
Comes an old man bending.
It is the good gray poet dressing
The wounds of the young warriors,
Whom he longs to love.

Dear heart of the nation,
Keeper of democracy,
Man as literature,
Who better to sit by the unsettled
All through their somber night?

Who better to remove their blood soaked rags?
Who better to smooth their hair?
Who better to cry their suffering?
Who better to beseech death to come,
But one who will record it so sacredly?

From the corner of a blue fog lifting
Comes and old man bending.
It is the good gray poet turning
The heavy woolen blankets to find
The face of Christ, divine in death.

After these some hundred years it is
Still the same grass growing,
The same leaves turning,
The same wind blowing across the
Stagnant, bloodied, and flyblown fields.

It is the same celebration of yourself.
The same mist of your breath,
The same play of shadow and light.
It is the same song of yourself,
Sung from the same bearded lips.

THE VISITOR

2010-01-03T17:49:00.000-08:00

Watercolor, Old Mossy Moon, by Terry Clark

THE VISITOR

What does it mean when you show up at my door,
Youthful and majestic, a lost Croatian queen, carrying
In your deep fur-lined pockets, fossils of Neanderthal
Bones, like stones, unearthed centuries ago in Krapina?

On my stoop, in January’s radiant light, a crown surrounds
Your pale head, as the arctic winds blow through my open door,
Swirling into the house, touching every corner, smelling of sweet
Black juniper cones, icy ferns, pine needles, and a crush of cloves.

By the fire, we sit for hours as you regale me with your stories
Of giants, and faery-folk, snowy owls, and cave dragons of
Fire and smoke, and of stars that have fallen from the heavens
Into your winter’s garden, where they grow into crystal flowers.

Now that the wind has quieted down and the fire has turned cold,
And I have been told the last magical stories you will ever know,
You pack your words away and start on your long journey home,
Through the moonlit woods, over the snowy hill, toward home.

LEANING OUT

2009-12-13T15:59:00.000-08:00

LEANING OUT

high above
the silent city
she spends
her hours
leaning out
toward the
high towers
and piercing
spires –
the bells
tolling
her desires
to breathe
through the
holes they
punch in
the black
star-sprinkled
sky

and
from them
the air –
reaching
her from some
ancient hill -
or the breath
of a mystical
messenger
sweeter still

and now
to fall
silently down
toward the
whiteness
of snow
and the
dark blue
shadows
beckoning
below

the stars
watching in
amazement
as they brighten
their glow
and the earth
flinches
impulsively
and waits
for the blow
of another
poet gone
mad with
thinking -
or with the
thoughts
that makes
it so

but the
poet is an
aged thrush
who flings
her frail
frame into
the wintry
gust of
iced flakes
and crystal
shapes of
every blush
and with
her might
she fights
to flutter -
as wings
bend and
songs stutter
while her body
tumbles down
through the
pall of night

just as
the winter
suffers
the snow
the paper
endures the
words of
the poet
as she goes
down through
the night
dangerously
dangerously
in her flight

WHAT SHARON THINKS

2009-11-29T10:33:00.000-08:00

WHAT SHARON THINKS

In a passing
conversation
about writing,
a poet friend
said she thinks
metaphors are
scary - such as,
“water is blood.”

I don’t want
one thing to be
another thing,
she argued.

Yet, she made
it clear that she
is keen on similes,
explaining - with
a grand gesture
of her hand,
“life is a simile.”

…Is it me?

THE EXTENT OF THINGS

2009-11-15T16:47:00.000-08:00

THE EXTENT OF THINGS

here’s what
brought us to this -

that cold steel
that sought me out
and blood and bone
I suffered alone…

you kept vigil over me
in my troubled times
on the mountain
and you let me see
your beating heart,
however faint

your voice behind me
in a hush of love,
assuring me of eternity

and youth – transitory,
like any other thing
that is here for a
moment and gone,
was hidden away
under old forest trees
where the only light
shone from our eyes

one sweet day
after another
sweet day,
each longer
than a year,
and that special
grace holding off
imminent sadness

how many nights
did we confess our
sins but were never
absolved
we never needed
forgiveness
I know that now

we put our
heads together
and changed
the universe -

stars from
different galaxies
exploding into
a billion shards -
still traveling
through a dark

and endless space.

INDICATIONS

2009-11-08T07:12:00.000-08:00

INDICATIONS

Breath is holding form now,
as the promise of sleep whispers
seductively in the cold fields.

Up on the hill, the wild pears
hide crystals of ice inside
their sweet white flesh -
as tendrils of pumpkin vines
lie in dark and delicate rot.

And weeds, that so carefully
multiplied themselves
in the heat, now shiver boney
and brown in the wind -
their rustling, a death rattle.

At the edge of the field,
high, in the interlaced
branches of a walnut tree,
a plague of gregarious grackles
marshal themselves.

They scold me - and scream
their disapproval of my
aimless wanderings.

Richer Than Croesus

2009-11-02T18:04:00.000-08:00

Leaves,
like gold coins
and red jewels,
tumble down
from the
treetops
and pile up
at our feet -
making us
richer than
Croesus.

ONCE, WE WERE CATS!

2009-10-24T10:40:00.000-07:00

ONCE, WE WERE CATS!

How could I eat under the gaze
of an orange sphere, the black hands
telling me when I could become a cat!

I squirmed in the circle of humanity
and watched the pale thin lips
that would soon speak to set me free.

Outside, the wind was calling to me,
and the dogwood scratched my name
on the side of the house for all to hear.

It’s time!
Down the long hall to the mirrored
room we marched, as if cats already.
One by one, our arms stretched out
into black cat arms, as we flexed
our claws, hunched our backs,
unfurled our tails, and put on our
feline faces – and MEOWWWed.

The mama cat was the last to show,
with laughing eyes, and a proud grin.
She loved her family of cats.
She had chosen well for this night.

With faces all same,
we stair stepped down into the town.
The people all turned out
to see the family of black cats
and called out their approval,
as we walked proud and mysterious -
just as our mama cat had taught us to do.

I loved being a cat!
I smelled rats in the air
mixed with the pungent smell of smoke.
I lurched forward at the bark of a dog,
who was fortunate to have a family
of cats come to call at his front doorstep.

I hissed and spewed and swung my
claws at all the monsters who traveled
to and fro on the ribbon of white -
under a huge milky moon.

…and now…

The faces that were all the same
are gone – given away long ago,

ruined in floods, burned in fires,

forgotten in some trunk,

– turned to dust.
Who knows? Only the

memory of the masks remains.

But - we were a family
of cats one October night –
a proud and mysterious lot.
We laughed and meowed

under a huge Halloween moon,
in the cool evening air,
sweet with the smell of leaves.
Yes, once…we were cats!

THE GHOSTS OF GETTYSBURG

2009-10-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

THE GHOSTS OF GETTYSBURG

Under an ashy moon,
we walked between
twin oaks – where just
as the street brightened
with the most delicate
of lavender lights,
we caught a face,
ghastly and ghostly,
in an upstairs window
of the old academy.

No paler skin had we
ever seen, nor eyes
like liquid coal – a
skeletal face looking out
upon us, as we shuddered
in the autumnal cold.

In that elegant space of fright,
words stuck in our throats
and our candles hissed
in the shadowy night,
burning down to nubs
in a matter of seconds,
as we stared in disbelief
at the gruesome phantom.

The black wax of
our burned down candles
dripped and hardened
on the cobbled streets -
where countless crushed
and mangled men lie
tangled through eternity.

In the shadows,
pages of prayer turned
in alabaster hands
like flames in wind,
as demons rested their
putrid chins on our
shoulders and licked
our cheeks with their
searing hot tongues.

Screams tore out
from deep within us,
but the night swallowed
up the sound, and no one
looked around toward us,
as if nothing unusual
was happening on those
scary streets in town.

And from somewhere
far, and from somewhere
near, an army started
to march – and we fell
in among the bloodied ranks
of the rebels and yanks,
who never went home,
in body or soul, from
the Battle of Gettysburg.

Was our fate sealed,
we wondered, as we
stumbled along with
the soldiers marching
through the streets.
Had we been caught up
in a eddy of eternity -
with the ghost soldiers
of the war between
the states?

Just then, a hand reached
through the marching men -
a hand of lavender light,
and set us free and on
our way through the
streets filled with tourists
laughing in the night –
all hoping for just one glimpse
of a vaporous apparition –
just one long look at a
ghostly, ghastly ghoul!

Dazed and mystified,
we walked lead-footed,
away from Seminary Ridge -
never once looking back
at the marching ghosts or
the face in the window –
of the old haunted school.

THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE WOODEN HANDS

2009-10-09T18:18:00.000-07:00

OCTOBER - TIME FOR THE STRANGE, WEIRD, CREEPY

AND THE MACABRE!

THE YOUNG MAN WITH THE WOODEN HANDS

Over on the banks of the river
where the townsfolk divided their time,
there lived a man whose hands
were made of wood - polished
to a deep, rich gleam. They were
walnut stained, for no other reason than
he was as poor as a piper.
(Walnut stain was free for the indigent
and no one pays a piper.)

The hands were grainy, with intricate
one-of-a-kind patterns, figures, and whorls.
Dark wooden hands - do dark wooden deeds.
(Didn’t he beat Elaine to death?)
Ended up in some archaic prison.

His hands were his undoing.
He died fairly young. Asbestos Poisoning.
His wooden fingers wouldn’t let the pipe
cover alone during those years spent in
the prison’s machine shop. (Pick, pick - Chink, chink.)
Lethal white dust.
(Jesus, didn’t he write his name in that stuff?)

He was laid out in his mother’s parlor.
(Slicked down black hair - red lips,
pink circled cheeks, eel’s skin suit.)
But, where were the wooden hands?
The dark, grainy, walnut hands that made
him who he was and who he was not?
His mother’s teeth clicked as she said,
“Oh, I could never get rid of them.
They’re in a shoebox, under his bed.

BLANCHE ALL OVER AGAIN

2009-09-30T17:28:00.000-07:00

BLANCHE ALL OVER AGAIN

Walking hot on a sidewalk white,
She stepped inside a cavern tavern
That reeked of stale beer and tobacco
of cheap perfume
of the musk of men
But, offered as a consolation
Dark, cool air.

Sitting sticky on the red vinyl,
She ordered a rum and cola and
Lit a cig with trembling hands
trembling lips
trembling legs
And inhaled the smoke clear
down into her aching lungs.

Sweating sweetly on her green silk,
Her white-cottoned finger pressed
The moisture above her lip
between her breasts
behind her knee
As she looked around to see if
Anyone could see.

Hearing loudly a remembered tune,
Wailing forth into the dank air,
She absentmindedly tapped her toe
tapped her glass
tapped her mind
As the dancers took to the floor
Under the yellow paper stars.

Standing shyly on worn floorboards,
She turned to walk toward the door
When she heard his voice in her ear
in her hair
in her heart
Talking that familiar lingo of long ago
That always shocked her sensibilities.

Smiling appreciatively at his face,
A face that years ago she would not
Have even looked upon,
She took the hand of her partner
of her lover
of her savior
And laughed appreciatively
At his crude remarks.

MONDAY - AROUND 5:30 P.M.

2009-09-21T17:36:00.000-07:00

MONDAY - AROUND 5:30 P.M.

A black feather,
in the stillest of air
and in the quietest of moments,
moved of its own volition
across my clean swept porch,
making it the only true
marvel of the day.

AS YOU GO

2009-09-15T18:35:00.000-07:00

AS YOU GO

god - what a curious fancy
you are as you fill your
arms with night’s breath
and balk at the barking
dog star’s bite and skip to
the songs of woodsy sprites

I want to follow you
I want to tell you that
you make me laugh and cry
but I cannot form words
in my mouth of stone
nor move in this pull
of air around me

2009-08-05T16:54:00.000-07:00

I feel as though I have been away for a hundred years or more. My days have been rich and poor, sad and joyful, painful and euphoric, productive and destructive, tiring and exhilerating - and filled to overflowing with love and wonder.

I can only thank you from my heart and tell you how much I appreciate your standing by. Your comments were like little flickers in the dark of night. I hadn't really planned on returning today, but when I read that Rick was going to hold his breath - until he turned blue - waiting for my return, I got scared! (love you, Rick)

I am afraid I will be sporadic for the next couple of weeks in visiting your blogs and posting, but honestly, I do plan on returning in great profusion by month's end.

I leave you with this small, yet significant poem (for me anyway) - scratched in haste, as I sat in my flower garden this evening.

VENERABLE HOUR

in the last
chapter of summer

I find my existence
as with the bee balm’s

that's gone tattered
and shaggy now

with the constant
meddling of bees

THERE WILL BE A BRIEF INTERMISSION

2009-07-13T13:10:00.000-07:00

I meant to write earlier to let everyone know that I wouldn't be around for awhile. Actually, I thought I would be back by now and didn't feel the need to say I would be away - If you can follow that.

However, I realize now, I can't come back just yet - lots of stuff going on - none of it bad. I'm just really busy with matters that came up suddenly.

I'm sorry that I'm missing Jason's contest, but I will be sure to read all the entries at some point. I certainly wanted to enter - even had a good idea, which I will work on and post, at some point, on Old Mossy Moon. Good luck to all of you who are entering. It's always so exciting!!

Sorry, too, that I can't visit your blogs for a time. I'll miss that, but will catch up with everyone soon.

Best regards to all of you wonderful writers and poets,

Kaye

RUMINATIONS

2009-06-30T10:52:00.000-07:00

RUMINATIONS

On the steps
of the museum,
I sit pondering
our times,
when Pushkin
breaks in with his
melodic language,

a blend of Slavonic

and vernacular Russian.

The bits of years,
that lay hidden
and closed off,
are suddenly free.
They fly up from
my lap in a powder
of everyday words
that intoxicate me.

I cry for
Eugene Onegin.
“Life is so unfair,”
I say to comfort him - and,
"You hang in the

balance between

fiction and real life!"

Walking home
late in the afternoon,
I stop by the pond
to watch the reflections
of the swans, and not
the swans themselves.

There is something
about their reflections,
those watery
forms of expression.
I know what they are
when I see them,
but they are still unclear -
sort of like
19th century Russia.

A CHILD'S SUMMER NIGHT

2009-06-24T18:28:00.000-07:00

Photograph by Steven David Johnson

A CHILD’S SUMMER NIGHT

In the absence of light,
the harshness of day
is sloughed away
into a reflecting pool of night,

where a billion things shine
that are not stars -
but fireflies caught in jars,
illuminating your face and mine.

Here what passes are not ships,
but silver dreams with golden masts,
with billowing sails sewn from the past,
moving in breath blown from an angel’s lips.

TIMES FOUR

2009-06-22T12:39:00.000-07:00

The roses have nothing to do with this post.

I just wanted everyone to see my beautiful roses!

TIMES FOUR

I was tagged by Vesper at Chick With A Quill.

Looks like fun – so, here goes:

Four Movies You Can See Over and Over

The Quiet Man
A Streetcar Named Desire

To Kill a Mockingbird
The Godfather

Four Places You Have Lived

Pratt, WV
Hansford, WV
Richmond, Virginia
Pennsylvania

Four TV Shows You Love(d) to Watch

Miami Vice

Law and Order

Monk

The Deadliest Catch

Four Places You Have Been on a Vacation

Jackson Hole, Montana
Niagara Falls

Sanibel Island, FL

Yellowstone National Park

Four of your favorite foods

spaghetti w/sauce
crab cakes
chicken and dumplings
salads

Four Websites You Visit Daily

Etsy.com
Poets.org
MSN.com
Poetrysociety.org

Four Places You Would Rather Be

right here at home
English Countryside
Key West, FL
Italian Villa

Four Things You Hope to Do Before You Die

Turn 90

Learn to play the piano

Publish a book of poetry

Read Moby Dick… and enjoy it – I’ve been trying for 30 years!

Four Novels You Wish You Were Reading for the First Time

Anna Karenina

The Clan of the Cave Bear

The Thorn Birds
The Secret Life of Bees

Tag Four People You Believe Will Respond

- Karen - Keeping Secrets
- Aniket - Melody of Dissonance
- Margaret - My Poems And Emotions
- THE WALKING MAN

THE TRUTH OF THINGS

2009-06-15T17:31:00.000-07:00

THE TRUTH OF THINGS

with me
it’s not the
voices

sweeping me
with their
delicacy

it’s the ravaging
of the night
the digging

and the
fright and
the animal

sounds that shift
in the cavity
of my skull

like wind
or an endless
throb of thoughts

it’s the sifting
of earth beside
my dream

just there
a wall
between

where roses
let go their
petals quietly

in a
slight wind
of reverie

falling
at my feet
like concrete

with me
it’s not the
voices

it’s the
absence of
voices

that I hear
so piercingly
at night

A NEW GETHSEMANE

2009-06-08T17:53:00.000-07:00

A NEW GETHSEMANE

Following Candide’s advice,
I cultivated my own garden
in rich black humus that was
as soft and as cool as the
earthworms that churned there.

I became a messiah
to the strawberry plants –
the expected deliverer of the fruit.
Day after day, I worried over them,
as if they had mortal souls to save.

They strayed from the righteous path and
climbed into the beans, tomatoes, and corn.
They were not interested in possibilities,
but wanted only to live for the here and now.

I absolved those murderous strawberry
plants that strangled the delicate snow
peas standing innocently in their way -
strangled them until their blossoms lay
white upon the ground like translucent
eyelids cut from tiny alien corpses.

Beyond tired, I would sit under
the tulip tree at night to rest.
I would try to forget the
strawberry plants for a while.
But always, looking toward
the garden, I felt restless -
as if I were about to be betrayed.

LAST PAINTING

2009-05-30T19:16:00.000-07:00

LAST PAINTING

Crows rose like black rick rack
into a sky of blue violence,
flying
up from the golden wheat fields,
where boots had trampled
a sad and solitary path.

Listen to the screams of the crows
as they furiously flap their oil black
wings,
attempting to ascend the boundaries
of the earth, only to be caught
forever in a flight of vain striving.

The crows advance toward the
observer in a wave of
madness.
Here, the diverging roads lead
nowhere, and traveling them brings
only darkness forever – and peace.

TIGERS' REVENGE

2009-05-24T18:20:00.000-07:00

Tigers’ Revenge

“I hate this God forsaken place,” Robert Fisher grumbled under his breath, as he made his way on the wet streets of Lower Manhattan.

The smell of Chinese food, wafting from every corner of Chinatown, repulsed him. He drew out his clean monogrammed handkerchief and covered his mouth and nose, as he headed down Canal Street toward his destination.

He walked along the narrow street with his head down, avoiding eye contact with anyone. It startled him when an old woman, pushing her cart through a puddle, splashed water on his ostrich leg shoes.

“Watch out, you stupid Chink! Are you blind, as well as stupid?” He screamed at her as he pushed her cart over, and then bent down to wipe his shoes with the handkerchief. He didn’t notice the group of young Chinese men standing within earshot of his comment, but they noticed him.

Robert turned in an alley and hurried to a dingy building with a smiling Panda painted on the door. Inside, the small room overflowed with cheap souvenirs.

“You want Tiger bone?” A middle-aged Chinese woman asked, stepping out from a back room.

“What’s wrong with you? I’ve been coming here every month for two years and you ask me this every freakin’ time. Of course I want the bones!”

“They gone up, now. You pay more,” she said, paying no attention to his rude behavior.

“What! What do you mean? Oh, shit! How much more?”

“Three hundred dollar more,” the woman said.

“Are you crazy? I’m paying fifteen hundred now. It can’t have increased that much in a month. Let me talk to Lin!” He yelled, as he looked past her to the entrance of the backroom.

The woman retreated behind a doorway of red hanging beads.

Keeping her voice low, she said in her real American accent, “Woo, that rich, rotten bastard who comes in for the tiger bones is pissed because the price has gone up. He wants to talk to you.”

“Oh, crap! I’m in no mood for “Mr. Warmth” today.” He took a drag from his cigarette and handed it off to his sister, as he rolled his eyes, then took a second to get into character.

Woo Lin hunched his shoulders, ducked through the beads, bowed and said, “Can I help you?”

“Yeah, what the hell’s going on, China-man? My medicine has increased three hundred freakin’ dollars! Why?” He demanded.

“Many people in market for tiger bone. Very potent medicine. Make you live long and youthful life. It illegal trade. Crack down on poachers and smugglers. Less tigers now. All these things make bone scarce. More valuable. More expensive. Eighteen hundred dollar now for month supply. But, every month you take ground up tiger bone pill, you live six month longer. It Fountain of Youth.

“Well, this sucks!” Robert slammed the money down on the counter. “You slant eyes are crooks. Everybody knows that! Come on, give me the goddamn pills!” he screamed.

Woo Lin reached under the counter and brought up the vial of pills and held them out to his irate customer.

Without saying a word, Robert Fisher grabbed the vial and spun around. He didn’t hear the Chinaman curse him under his breath, as he slammed the Panda door behind him.

The rain had stopped. Heavy fog filled every recess of Chinatown. Robert could not have seen the group of men who had positioned themselves surreptitiously in the alley. These were the same men who had seen him push over the old woman’s flower cart. They were members of the Silver Dragons, a self-appointed group of protectors of the Chinese community.

This wasn’t the first time they had witnessed Robert Fisher’s irreverent conduct. In fact, they had been monitoring him ever since he grabbed an immigrant by the neck. The newly arrived Chinese man had given him the wrong change after Robert had bought a men’s magazine at his newsstand.

“You short changed me you sneaky, yellow thief! That was a twenty I gave you, not a ten!” Robert had said.

“So sorry, so sorry,” the immigrant had been truly sorry for his mistake.

Robert had disappeared into the crowd that evening, but not before one of the members of the Silver Dragons got a good look at him. That was the first of many offenses deemed inexcusable by the Chinese men who watched over things here.

The next morning the rain had moved up the coast and the fog had lifted. Pale sunlight slanted in, as merchants and tourists started to mill around the streets of Chinatown. At the end of Canal Street, several detectives were busy questioning bystanders.

“Ah, come on people! A man just doesn’t get dead and nobody sees nothin,’” a detective was saying. “Somebody’s gotta know somethin’! It happened last night – probably sometime after 7:00 p.m,” he pleaded with a few merchants standing in the crowd that had gathered.

A forensics officer took something out of the dead man’s pocket and studied it for a few seconds. “Hey, look at this,” he said, as he held it up to the detective who was questioning people.

“Yeah, what is it?” the detective asked.

“Tiger bone pills. That’s what it says on the label. And get this. It says to take one pill daily to promote longevity.”

The detective looked down at Robert Fisher’s dead body. “Yeah? Well, maybe he forgot to take one yesterday.”

GETTING BY

2009-05-17T18:33:00.000-07:00

GETTING BY

In the cold regions -
in the sad and lonely
youth-killing regions,
where cheap paneling
is everyone’s answer,
the roads are arms and legs,
the hills are hips and thighs,
the fields are backs
and the destination
is the back of a head.

Here, the trucks and cars
don’t need oil and gas.
They are pushed along the roads
by young children who want
to be with their mothers.

The roll and drone
of the vehicles soothe
the ragged nerves and
relieve the sore muscles
of the mothers, who, for their
children’s entertainment, walk
back and forth for miles a day
casting stones into make-believe
streams, until they give out
on purple horsehair sofas.

With eyes closed against their pain,
the mothers are happy just to know
where their children are playing,
and fall into a deep sleep,
devoid of worry and fear.

2009-05-11T19:35:00.000-07:00

My sister's wedding was a wonderful celebration of family and friends, unity, and love. The ceremony was everything it should have been - food and drink, music and dancing, laughter and tears, remembering old times and making new memories.

As my sister said, "A Pisces marrying a Pisces on the water...it's a good sign."

Here's to Lolanda and Gerald!
May your wedding vows forever echo over the historic waters of the Potomac and your words of love spin eternally in the eddies of time.

I love you both with all my heart.

I wrote this poem a few years back, as part of my "Sister Poems" series. Lolanda is the youngest of five daughters. I am almost ten years older than she - so, I remember the night she was born. She was born at home. The country doctor had a flat tire on his way to our house to deliver her. His car was left on a bridge that crossed a creek. He and his nurse walked to our house in the dark, during a spring storm. See the water connections again? The name Lolanda is of Native American origin and means "little one".

LOLANDA

where are you
soft round head
with downy nape
solemn face
too young to be so

sea crystals sparkled
on your fingers
you were the first
of your kind to be born

you were careful not
to break your mother’s back
on those smoke filled days
of dark indigo skies

there you are gentle beauty
grown from shadowed halls
where we lived for hours
in blue glass stars

sweetness of innocence
lightness and dew
you traveled with a
companion for the
forbidden fruit
lost in a world that
is forever gone
we found you
there unharmed

a scream in the night
denied by one not much older
claimed my love for all time
and became an imprint
on my spirit forever

2009-05-06T17:46:00.000-07:00

We're heading down to Old Town Alexandria, VA for my sister's wedding. She's getting married on the Nina Dandy Cruise Ship. We'll be cruising on the historic Potomac River, and when we aren't looking at the bride, or eating cake, or dancing - we'll be checking out the monuments in D.C. and looking at other sights along the way.

Everyone behave while I'm gone!! ;D

I'll be back to post a new poem and to visit your blogs on Monday.

2009-04-29T17:49:00.000-07:00

OFFERINGS

I sit in a cool
triangle of shade
beside a sunny lake,
overtaken here and there
by lily pads, accented
with white blossoms sitting
in the lotus position.

I imagine gold fish,
as big as Buddha,
resting in the tangle
of roots below -
in silent meditation.

I remove my sandals and
walk along the grassy edge
of the lake, holy ground,
where clear water puddles
and pools in silence.

Suddenly, a sparrow lands
on a willow tree branch,
just above my head.
She sings and points
with a delicate wing
to the gibbous moon,
mysterious and pale,
in the late morning sky.

It is her gift to me.
What else can she give?
What more could I want?

IN RETROSPECT

2009-04-22T17:45:00.000-07:00

Art by Donald Axleroad

IN RETROSPECT

In the dead chill of emptiness
where sound cannot vibrate
alone I remember being sick
in the mountains almost always
spring

Corners were cut close then
beside daffodil elixirs spilling
over onto chimney stones pitched
on the sides of steep hills burnt by
fires

I wonder now if those monsters
were merely chimaeras welcoming
me into paradise standing under
the flutter of peacock wings and
smoke

Or did they breathe and roar
and grow hair just for the travelers
who would pass them at light speed
rejoicing only to slump back again
sick

MUSIC OF THE STORM

2009-04-14T13:38:00.000-07:00

Painting by Cash Garrison

MUSIC OF THE STORM

In the hollow of the mountain,
thunder booms and reverberates
like the sound of kettledrums,
- rising and falling -
resonating over the maidenhair
ferns and wild orchids,
blowing chaotically in the wind.

Searing flashes separate
darkness from light,
and, for a split second, we
see the crown of the mountain
looming high above us,
and below us the bright
rush of the creek water.

In the explosion of light,
the tall pitch pines seem
newly created – then,
quick to disappear again,
they leave us only with
their brilliant negatives.

Our faces press the windowpane
to feel the notes of the rain
and the percussion of thunder
- a crescendo -
exhilarating, yet, terrifying.

As the storm passes,
we listen to the eerie melody
rumbling down the corridor
of Appalachian rock
in a haunting echo.

Deep in our sleep, we dream
about the music of the storm.
We remember being a drop of rain
in the torrent – becoming one
with this primitive world,
still in the making.

Atonement of Atomes

2009-03-30T15:32:00.000-07:00

This poem first appeared on Jason Evans' excellent blog, The Clarity of Night, as an entry in the "Midnight Road" short fiction contest.

Photograph courtesty of Jason Evans

ATONEMENT OF ATOMES

on that dark day
of the crucifixion
the sky opened up
and the moon
illuminated our sins

was it sweat or blood
that ran that day
was the altar marble
or pale cold skin

why still the darkness
creates our shroud
that hangs off beaten bones
and stirs us to awaken now
as undivided atomes

we were electrified
by an Ionic Savior
his words in us were charged
did not we feel them
stirring in our wombs and
burning in our hearts

we lost an electron
on the midnight road
but in our souls we keep
electricity to light the way
and tears of blood to weep.

Kahlo Tribute

2009-03-22T18:05:00.000-07:00

fate is locked
in a painful garden
doors are knocked
in anxious despair
weeping mourns
the hour upon her
in the frenziedly painted air

25

2009-03-17T18:36:00.000-07:00

25

Joaquin Carvel Lyrics & Maladies tagged me!
I’m to list 25 writers who have influenced ME - as a writer. This is harder than I thought it would be. Like Joaquin, I don’t know where admiration ends and influence begins – or the other way around.
I will divide my list into 12 novelists and 13 poets. The novelists have certainly inspired me in many ways, affecting my writing in one way or another; or their works have influenced my thinking in some way. The poets listed are the poets I read consistently, on an everyday basis. There are many more poets whose work I admire and read – but, for this exercise, I have chosen the top 13 who, I feel, have “taught” me how to write and have given me an appreciation for poetry. – They have most definitely enriched my life with their excellent verse! Honestly, this was hard. I feel guilty about the ones I left out. There are many! ;(
I’ve mixed modern day with historical poets.
Well, here goes! I worked for a couple of hours just paring down the list! They are in no particular order of importance.

The novelists:

1. Somerset Maughan
2. Ann Tyler
3. John Steinbeck
4. William Faulkner
5. Pearl S. Buck
6. Tennessee Williams
7. Flannery O’Connor
8. Conrad Richter
9. Hans Christian Andersen
10. Robert Louis Stevenson
11. Eudora Welty
12. D. H. Lawrence

and the poets...
13. Ruth Stone
14. Walt Whitman
15. William Shakespeare
16. Charles Baudelaire
17. Hart Crane
18. John Keats
19. Theodore Roethke
20. Ted Kooser
21. Jane Kenyon
22. W.H. Auden
23. May Swenson
24. Marianne Moore
25. William Carlos Williams

And now, I am instructed to tag 3 people!
Karen Keeping Secrets
Bob Browning Life and Times of a Sometime Poet
Catherine Vibert Witnessing a World of People and Places

STORY FOR SPRING

2009-03-11T18:43:00.000-07:00

STORY FOR SPRING

It was early spring,
when we walked
between the mountains,
bloodroot blotching
the ground like
patches of snow.
Chimney smoke
layered heavy in
the Appalachian valley,
obscuring the fruit
saplings in blue haze.

Over by the creek,
we came upon an
old mountain woman
eating turtle egg soup
in the shadows
of the beechnuts -
her mouth a darkened
slash in sallow skin,
eyes dark lined
and bright blue;
her hands two knots
and sweet smelling
from the black lye soap
she made from the
rendered fat of her pigs.

The soup and her smile
were both offered to us,
and we took both kindly –
the soup in delft bowls.
You slurped yours to be
polite and I spilled mine
out when I knew she
wasn’t watching me.

The old woman smiled
and wiped the grease of
the soup from her lips
onto her black mourning
sleeve, until it shone
like a mirror - reflecting
the shapes of the clouds
above us.

She laughed as she
hugged her shy old breasts,
and bade us to return one day.

Later in life,
when I was starving,
I dreamt of turtle eggs
rolling off marble sills
onto polished floors.
Like ping pong balls,
they bounced and rolled
into all the corners
of my existence,
piling up against
the doors and windows
of my youth,
falling and rolling
into my middle aged years –
soft, leathery, cream-colored
giant pearls, mystical
in their spherical-ness…
falling and rolling.

TAKING SHAPE

2009-03-05T17:12:00.000-08:00

Merissa Gilbert Garrison

TAKING SHAPE

The sun shines through my molecules,
making little kaleidoscopic designs
on the early morning walls of my room.

I want to be a child of light

and lightness,
I whisper into the stillborn air.

I want to be that lacy rendering
blushing on the blue -
and what moths are drawn to
on old nights of mossy moons.

I want to be that brilliant point
at which you stare, until I
disappear into the soft air
of black firmament.

I want to be the shine
on the wings of
crows - rainbows
on oily plumage.

I want to be the glint on the white
skin of water that slips over
the ancient stones in a stream -
or in your dream.

And, when the time comes -
I want to be the glimmer
you call hope.

A POET IN LITHUANIA

2009-02-24T16:31:00.000-08:00

Painting by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

A POET IN LITHUANIA

The narcissus bulbs
she forced in shallow
pots of stone and water,
stretch up, papery white,
in the window,
tall, slender sentinels.
Some of the weaker stems
droop over in agony
against the frosted glass
of March’s night.
The newly arrived storks
shift in their man-made
nests on the roof above her,
impersonating the souls
of the dead poets of Vilnius.
With her heart,
she listens for a whispered
word from them –
some thrilling word
to help her write,
but none will come.
Instead, she hears
the hollow rattling
of their bills clattering
far into the night.
In a few months,
the storks will lift
from her roof in a quiet hush,
catch a warm stream of air
and without a single
flap of their wings,
they will glide
all the way to the Baltic Sea.
Unable to concentrate
on words any longer
and with no lover
in the city now,
the poet will beg
the storks to take her
with them on their flight.
For her passage, she’ll promise
to speak for them,
as they have no
voices of their own.
But the storks,
afraid of losing their independence,
will refuse to take her along.
Forlorn and detached,
she will crumple page after
scribbled page, and throw them
into the blackened fireplace –
long into winter’s night,
as she waits for the skies to turn white
with the wings of the returning storks.
For her - it is not enough
to pen the poem;
she wants to breathe it.

FOR A MOMENT

2009-02-18T18:35:00.000-08:00

FOR A MOMENT

we stop
we hold
our breath
we watch
we listen

by the look of things
by the sound of things
we guess a miracle
has taken place

we grasp hands
just for a moment
the wall of silence
opens up between us

we laugh and cry
we sing and sigh
just for a moment
we touch beyond

what we have been
to each other all these
years for a moment
and then
the moment is gone
and so are we

RETICENCE

2009-02-12T14:47:00.000-08:00

RETICENCE

Masquerading as a goddess,
she looks out upon the city
as her lover sleeps.
The city looks different to her,
now that he has come back.

She marvels at this,
as she presses her face to the
dark, cold glass of winter,
studying the lights,
and the buildings -
the bridges, and
the streets below.

Knotted tendrils of hair
fall over her shoulder,
and her legs tremble,
as she looks back to
her lover who beckons
to her now.

Glancing out the
window one last time,
she sees dark animals
running on a windy hill -
and pockets of luminous light
in a dark and foreboding sky.

THE DANCE

2009-02-05T16:14:00.000-08:00

THE DANCE

In the late
afternoon sun
of February,

in a room
resplendent
with hearts,

we dance
the polka in
old world style

to long-playing
records that skip
with contentment,

while the crows
on the wall look
impassively on.

I see nothing
but your cornflower
blue eyes.

I feel nothing
but your warm sweet
breath on my cheek.

Your expression says,
let’s dance till the
crows call our names.

UNDER THE WOLF MOON

2009-01-29T18:55:00.000-08:00

UNDER THE WOLF MOON

We live in the
bare branches now,
our skin splitting
painfully under
the brilliant circle
of a Wolf Moon.

We have been
busy filling the
universe with
our human voices,
mouths open,
sensuously, in the
O of rhetoric;
no time to press
our lips against
the sun and stars.

Somewhere out
in the dark, a fox
slouches low -
and turkeys, as
black as crows,
bark like dogs
and run wild
over the ice.

We try to remember
the names of things,
trees, sky, woods -
fractal thoughts,
meaningless now.

Transmutation
metamorphosis
shifting

I breathe you in.

The moonlight
shows your
low set ears,
your curved nails;
and now, I recognize
you only by the bristles
under your tongue.

A Winter's Walk Ending With Poem

2009-01-26T17:55:00.000-08:00

Numbing Occlusion

Winter’s frosty
breath hangs
on the portals,
and clings to
the windowsills,
with bony fingers
of inert ice.
It settles itself
on the stone walls
surrounding my life,
impeding my movements.

COME ON, STEVIE

2009-01-21T18:23:00.000-08:00

Walpurgis Night by Paul Klee - 1935

COME ON, STEVIE

Come on, Stevie,
let me pull you up
just one more time
through the door
of my waiting,
to bury you at last.

Why do you want to see
your tall Seminole mother,
hand against the sun,
standing on the rocks,
searching for your
soft summer hair
in the cold swirling
currents of the river?

Why can’t you just
stay under the water,
snagged and caught
by some long ago tree
now rooted in the soft
black silt of the river’s floor?

Don’t show us your once sweet face.
Don’t show us your open wounds.
Don’t show us your watery lungs
or your eyes so wide that we can see
all of your hope lost in them.

At night I sweat, as I walk
along the river’s edge
looking for you.
On the day that you disappeared,
your mother said that I could
find you - and I believed her.

But, someday soon, Stevie,
I will be too old to drag you up
from the depths of the river.
I will be too old to fix your eyes,
and to dry you off,
and to kiss your wounds,
and to rock you in my arms,
and to sing to you,
and to pray for you.

Someday soon,
I will not drag you up,
and shake you out,
and prop you up
against the beating
of my own living heart.

Breathing Poetry

2009-01-17T16:12:00.000-08:00

My poem, ICONS, is featured on the wonderful new blog, "Breathing Poetry - A Collection of Words and Emotions." ICONS appears on the January 16 post.

Although, you may have read ICONS here, when I posted it back in the fall - please do YOURSELF a favor and (click here Breathing Poetry )to read the OTHER poems found there. It is a veritable feast for the eyes, not to mention the spirit! Nancy's blog has art, poetry, poetry quotes, contributor's links and more.

FROM "THE SISTER POEMS"

2009-01-10T16:37:00.000-08:00

CONNIE

It was you wasn’t it -
who designed my winter games,
who sang in that high sweet voice
in a darkness only we could share,
and who cried for children of clay?

It was you wasn’t it -
who loved the idol of our time,
who tasted animal blood in our food,
who covered her womanhood with
wool so that none could see?

It was you wasn’t it -
who hunted the leopard,
who had lips of greasy white one summer,
who danced in the streets with hair
streaked by magic moonlight?

It was you wasn’t it -
who wouldn’t let the wind slice
my face - cold steel slicing -
and who waited by the gate of
my dream to welcome me home?

It was you wasn’t it -
…who loved me?

The Great Blue Heron

2009-01-02T16:21:00.001-08:00

"HERON" by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

The Great Blue Heron

Against the delicate
dawn of a cold day,
the heron lifts
her head elegantly,
and points her beak
to the gray sky, as she
swallows a minnow -
silver, cold, and
shiny as a mirror.

Standing constant
and unwavering
in the icy mire,
she blinks back
dully against a
memory of days.

Suddenly,
she raises her voice
in a self-conscious
testimonial – a raucous,
guttural croak
that echoes over
the pond and
reverberates through
the exploded cattails,
and descends into
the dark muskrat lodge,
teeming with half-
frozen vegetation.

Then methodically,
she takes off from the
ice-edged pond and,
like a Gregorian chant,
she rises slowly
into the air.

Flying full winged
and ancient – she
rows over the tops
of the Scots pines,
brushing the night’s
snow from the tips
of their branches
into the wintry air,
where it glistens –
thousands of
sparkling crystals
shining in the
morning light of
the New Year.

THE LONGING

2008-12-27T18:59:00.000-08:00

Artwork created by Merissa Garrison

THE LONGING

I was nearly asleep when the earth cast its
shadow on the winter white moon.

I could feel the past move over my shoulder
in a chill wind brought forth from the mirror.

“Enjoy Yourself!” the past rang out from a little
ancient bell that sits in a land of wings and lost poetry.

“Enjoy Yourself!” the past pleaded with me, as I slept
with the poets of antiquity biting at my heels and heart.

Once, my mother asked me to find her some moon roses
when she wasn’t feeling beautiful anymore.

“Enjoy Yourself!” That same bell had rung out to my mother
as she had graciously smiled a “company smile” at all of them.

“Enjoy Yourself!” It had pleaded with her, as she sat and watched
all the other women ask my father to dance with them.

And now that the moon has moved in beside me, and the poets
have given up the fight, I am at peace with all of this.

Anyway, I cannot think of it anymore…my mother’s New Year
spent in longing - for all those shining days along the river.

JUST BELIEVE!

2008-12-21T19:09:00.000-08:00

JUST BELIEVE!

There is fairy music in the night
And a brush of wings in silvery light.

A big old moon with a wintry glow
Making glittery sparkles on the snow.

The big reindeer now fairly prances
He’s ready to fly while a vision dances.

So with a fanfare of horn, drum, and banjo
Santa lifts the reigns and laughs – Let’s go!

Into the dark and wild sky they race
Magically tricking time and space.

Around the world in just one night
Oh, wish I may and wish I might

See that old elf on his way
Across the heavens in his sleigh!

~ Christmas Blessings to All ~

A WINTER LONG PAST

2008-12-18T14:59:00.000-08:00

A WINTER LONG PAST

Trudging in snow as heavy as sand,
I pressed on toward those memories
Of lost winter games,
And breath forming crystals
On window panes
Like magic barnacles.

The bitter cold, then, made my legs
Burn and itch by the fire.
I raked the frozen cells
With my fingernails
Until trails of blood appeared.

My hair was damp and icy
Under the heavy wool
That imprinted vertical
Lines on my mind.

I had been the fox in the field,
Running in the heavy snow
To catch a rabbit slow.
Cunning in my slyness –
Running in my shyness –
I caught the sluggish ones,
Who lived nearby.

But, that was years ago.
Now the snow that I struggle through
Is just snow – a nuisance – a drudgery.
I watch as a single snowflake,
As huge as the moon, falls silently
On my infant’s warm cheek
And melts instantly away.

I HAUL THINGS

2008-12-14T15:09:00.000-08:00

Relief Sculpture by Merissa Garrison

I HAUL THINGS

I haul things.
I drag them behind me
from place to place,
from year to year.
They are becoming
a mountain of
remembering,
casting a shadow
on all four sides of me.

the shadow on the first side

For years, I hid behind
burgundy flowers of dusty damask,
enclosed in a chamber of glass,
looking at the world
through my own fingerprints.
When the real sun had given up,
the artificial one would take its place
above the elm trees, stippled with disease.

the shadow on the second side

When I held myself up
in the afternoon light,
I saw my reflection on
the silver side of leaves.
The sun set my hair on fire,
which slowly baked my brain
and made me sleepy.
I drifted off to fairyland,
where everything sparkled
and where I felt inviolate.

the shadow on the third side.

We stayed for years under
a catalpa tree. I stretched
out beside you in spring,
summer, winter and fall.
Once, when I was heavy
with child, you planted
watermelons beneath the tree.
Soon, they were climbing the
rock wall and disturbing my sleep.

the shadow on the fourth side

My birthday came cold
and late in the day. My gifts
were a blue sky from Germany,
fans from the Orient, an owl
from the enchanted woods, and
words – given to me by an old
friend from the Netherlands,
to help me make it through
one more bleak winter.

I haul things.
I drag them behind me
from place to place,
from year to year.
They are becoming
a mountain of
remembering,
casting a shadow
on all four sides of me.

CHENOA ON THE RESERVATION

2008-12-09T18:54:00.000-08:00

CHENOA ON THE RESERVATION

with her breath she
drew
an eagle with a
fish
in its talons
soaring
in the quiet
ether

above the powder
river
over the bighorn
mountains
into the dreams of her
youth
where elk sheep deer
bison

and the real people
lived
in peace and respect
quietly
in love with mother
earth
and with one
another

FROM "THE SISTER POEMS" SERIES

2008-12-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

The Star by Edgar Degas

JO

hello dreamer
you were the dancer
on sleek legs
of muscles hewn
on toes of hope
on dusty floors
arms outstretched
in a pose of
crucifixion
twirling magically
and then dying

cool ivory skin
smooth like glass
I touched you then
but did not know you
but I loved your magic

in you I saw
the reality of dreams
the beauty of youth
the ever stretching hope
of things to come
and the world as mine

you were me
and I was you
we didn’t know it then
until arm against arm
we saw the reflection

SYNTAX

2008-11-30T15:46:00.000-08:00

"Poplars" by Monet

SYNTAX

across the pond stood
a paragraph of trees
punctuated by commas
of birds resting there
just long enough
to make me pause

THE SASSAFRAS LEAF

2008-11-24T17:57:00.000-08:00

THE SASSAFRAS LEAF

A leaf all full of sassafras,
Floated without a sound onto the grass,
Then, quickly wafted onto a stone,
To sit there and think all alone.

I am big and yellow, the leaf thought,
But, it was something else that she sought,
To be something useful was her desire,
A thing that would encourage or inspire.

But, alas, no revelations came to her,
No ideas or imaginings began to stir,
So sadly, she let go of her dream,
She didn’t plan and she didn’t scheme.

Look, Mom, called a little voice,
This leaf is lucky – it has a choice,
It can be a mitten to warm a hand,
Or a big fat turkey living off the land.

The leaf felt the touch of a boy’s love,
As he picked up the yellow mitten glove,
Then turned the leaf on its other side,
And gobbled for the turkey there fat and wide.

The boy showed the leaf to his dad,
Who tried on the mitten, then gobbled like mad,
The child and his parents laughed with glee,
At the big yellow leaf from the sassafras tree.

The boy pressed the leaf all by himself,
And placed it carefully on a shelf,
And there he kept it all winter long,
Now that’s the end of this autumn song.

But, if you please, just one more word,
In case you find this poem absurd,
Oh, remember those days of childhood play,
When imagination ruled the day!

MISSING VINCENT

2008-11-20T18:38:00.000-08:00

Painting by Vincent Van Gogh

MISSING VINCENT

When I saw you in Paris in the spring of ‘87
your eyes were yellow-green and steady.

Your head was made up of short, broken strokes
of carrot color hair, styled like my father’s.

You were surprisingly neat. I noticed that
your blue cravat matched the buttons

on your jacket. Even in detached Paris,
you were emotionally motivated.

Your compassion for toil-worn souls
was still apparent. Even though your

palette was light and airy then,
I knew that your heart still belonged

to those who ate potatoes
in the semi-darkness.

WORDS

2008-11-16T17:45:00.000-08:00

WORDS

What can I say to you
that has not already
been revealed in these tiles,
scattered in magnetic profusion
on the face of my cold, flat life?

Honestly, if I could write to you
without words - I’d do it.

What words can give you back that morning,
when you ran to the top of the mountain
to see a red tail hawk resting in a chestnut tree.
Yes, I saw you running, your hair
a silky river streaming behind you.

If I had words to send you, I would want
you to swallow them like a tonic,
because I know, they would be potent.

But my words lay hidden, like onionskin eggs
placed in cold clumps of new, spring grass –
wizened eggs, petrified now,
in their waiting to be found and counted.

Back when our days belonged only to us,
my lips gave the trees permission to whisper
our names to the larks winging overhead.

And now,
now a silence of words gathers at the rim of
my life and prevents me from saying all those
things that I should have said years and years ago.

Words…
written, spoken,
lost, broken.

ETERNAL

2008-11-09T15:11:00.000-08:00

ETERNAL

The first fire of day
catches in the corner
of a gray November sky,
as winter trees bristle
on the spine of the mountain,
like hair on the back of
an angry dog.

I turn my face
to the ancient wind
and listen.
I hear the young ones singing.
I hear the old ones wailing.
I hear their voices telling me
something…something.

SPINNING ON ONE'S OWN AXIS

2008-11-03T17:03:00.000-08:00

Art work by Picasso

SPINNING ON ONE’S OWN AXIS

Like smoke from the
leaves of autumn burning,
my thoughts stratify over
the fields in thick
layers of contemplation.

Only the sound of my voice,
calling out my own name,
cuts through the miasma
and swirls crazily upward,

where it splinters into a
thousand words that shard
down into the ears of the deaf,
echoing like an insidious litany.

Go home now.
It’s too late.
I can’t help you.

MELINDA AND JACK - A STORY IN TWO PARTS

2008-10-31T14:06:00.000-07:00

Jack

~1840~

On a rainy day, filled with remorse, Melinda McMillan was laid to rest in a watery grave, the irony escaping no one. Tansy and rosemary leaves were spread all around to ward off danger from the corpse. The Irish Bagpipes played, “The Flowers of the Forest” and Maura Gillian sang a woeful rendition of “Down by the Salley Gardens.” Jack McMillan wept openly.

The railing that Melinda broke through was repaired with good solid timber the day after her burial. However, a shockwave of disbelief ran rampant through the valley, when within twelve hours of the renovation; the boards were broken up and busted through, as if they had not been repaired at all.

The repairs were made again, and for a second time the boards were broken through. When a third restoration was attempted, several men volunteered to stay at the bridge site for twenty-four hours to see if trickery and deception were involved.

The men rarely spoke of their experience, only to say that the bridge itself groaned loudly before the boards broke and exploded into the water below.

James Lilly, a young married man, was one of the volunteers who stayed at the bridge that night. His daughter, Annie, wrote an entry in her diary. “Da comed home from stayin’ on the bridge. Nobody knowed ‘im cause his hair turned pure white.”

People were terrified of the possibility that the bridge was possessed by Melinda’s restless spirit. They stopped using the bridge, opting instead to cross over dangerous wetlands a few miles further downstream.

“Jack, I wisht ye would eat somethin’,” his mother begged. “Yer gitten’ thin,” even though he still weighed 190 pounds and was as strong as a young bull.

“I’m alright, Ma, I don’t want any food right now. I’m goin' to the bridge. I want to try to repair it. Maybe the folks will start to use it again. Why should they be without a bridge?” He said, as he stood to leave. His mother’s worried look followed him.

Jackson rode his gelding through the early evening mist, as crows as dark as ink called overhead. He didn’t hear them, as his thoughts were only of Melinda and her porcelain skin and her mouth as soft and sweet as sugared cream. He tied his horse on a tree branch and walked onto the bridge. There was an absence of sound.

“My sweet darling’ where are ye now?” he whispered, as he gazed down into the creek. “I miss ye and I will forever.” He laid his head on his folded arms that rested on the bridge railing, directly across the span from the un-mended opening.

“Jack, I am here.” Had he heard Melinda’s whispered voice or was he mad.
Jack raised his head slowly and listened. He looked down into the creek and saw the faintest apparition of her, smiling up at him. She was in her wedding gown, holding the bouquet of oxeye daisies, standing on a flat rock in the middle of the creek.

“Melinda, my love. Is that you girl, or a phantom most fine?”
She beckoned to him with up stretched arms.
“Melinda, I cannot come to ye. You are in a place that I cannot go. Not now.”
Jack watched in terror as she rose into the air, stopping in front of him.
“But you have to come Jack. That was the wish I made the day we were last here.”
“No, Melinda – you didn’t make a wish. You fell before ye….”
“It was my dyin’ wish, Jack. Dyin’ wishes always come true,” she said, sweetly.
“No, Melinda…Melinda,” his breath came ragged now.
“But, Jack…My dying wish was that you and I would be together for eternity.”

Jack backed up, as she floated toward him, closer and closer. He was so frightened that he didn’t realize she was steering him right to the spot where she had fallen through, that un-repairable opening. As he started to fall backwards, she caught his hands in hers and pulled him into her, kissing his lips ever so softly, as together, they fell silently into Clay Creek, their spirits forever joined.

Everyone was saddened by the news that Jack had gone mad and "jumped" to his death. People from far and wide were fascinated by the romantic tale of Jack and Melinda McMillan. It was said that he could no longer draw breath in a world that was absent his raven-haired beauty. Ballads were sung and poems penned about the tragic events of the young married lovers. And… to honor Jack in his passionate, although dreadful act - the bridge, which had been known simply as the bridge over Clay Creek, was officially named “Lover’s Leap Bridge.”

A STORY IN TWO PARTS

2008-10-29T18:39:00.000-07:00

Melinda

~ May 30, 1840 ~

Melinda kissed her brother, her two sisters, her father and mother.
“Thank you, Mama, for the pretty weddin’ you gave me. I’ll remember it till the day I die.” Melinda said her farewells and with the help of her new husband, Jackson McMillan, stepped up into the wagon, holding her bouquet of Oxeye Daisies.

Jackson shook hands with Melinda’s father, bowed to her mother and sisters, and mussed the hair of her brother before jumping up onto the wagon’s seat beside his dainty, young bride.

Rice was thrown, tears were shed, and laughter lifted high atop the tulip trees, standing heavy with pink and white blossoms. Melinda tried to shout I love you over the rattle and bump of the tin cans and old shoes tied to the back of the buckboard, but her voice, faint with emotion, failed her.

The wagon had traveled only a few yards toward the settlement of Locust Hill, when Jackson put his arm around Melinda. “Ye’ve made me the happiest of all men today, Melinda. I’ll be a good husband to ye,” he said, as he kissed her forehead.

She leaned into him and squeezed his arm tightly, then reached up and kissed his cheek. “You were my dream, Jack. ‘Twas a wish that I made on a shootin’ star when I was fourteen years old that has come to fruition this day,” she looked adoringly at him.

The next few miles were filled with talk of future things – gardens, a barn, cows, and children. The mid-afternoon sun was warm on their faces, and added to their feeling of true contentment.

“Oh, Jack, let’s stop on the bridge so I kin make a wish!” she said.
“I thought I was yer wish,” he joked.
“I have another one,” Melinda said, demurely.

As she jumped off the wagon seat impetuously, the heel of her shoe caught in the hem of her dress. Dozens of starlings flew from the bridge in fear, as Melinda’s scream split the air. Jack reached out to grab her, but the delicate lace of her dress tore under his heavy hand. Still clutching her bridal bouquet, she plummeted thirty feet into the shallow, rocky waters of Clay Creek.

Jackson scrambled down the bank beside the bridge abutment and jumped into the water. When he reached her limp and broken body, he quickly felt her neck for a pulse. Jackson’s own breathing stopped, his face contorted, eyes shut tight against the looming possibility, as he felt for a sign of life. The contusion on her temple was a dark purple knot. She was bleeding from her mouth and nose. Feeling no pulse at her neck, he pressed his ear to her chest. There was no heartbeat.

The cry that tore from him was a guttural scream, raw and ugly; a primordial rendering that leaves the shell of a human intact, but shatters the spirit beyond repair.

PART TWO - FRIDAY

TOMBSTONES

2008-10-26T18:38:00.000-07:00

TOMBSTONES

rise up
in a stubble
of gray warts
across the great
green body of
the memorial lawn
fungus of the
dead and gone
telling us about
who we used to be

ICONS

2008-10-22T18:01:00.000-07:00

ICONS

I started out life flanked by my
mother’s wild flower garden
and the Kanawha river,
that ran cold and choppy
over the shoals that held
fresh water mussel beds,
ancient in their ruin.

I was captured at an early age,
held prisoner, then protected
by the mountains all around me.

At night, I was lulled to sleep
by the rhythmic clankety-clank
of the coal trains,
pulsing up and down the tracks
- like blood in veins -
keeping the people alive.

LAMENTATION

2008-10-20T17:34:00.000-07:00

Painting by Merissa Gilbert Garrison

LAMENTATION

Someone said it was
time to go. I was loathe
to leave the whispers behind.
We traveled huddled together,
a knot of professional mourners,
with pasty masks covering
our suntanned faces.

“Listen” broke our stride,
and we stopped on our path
in the middle of our thoughts.

Galloping out of nowhere
a troop of tumblers arrived
for our entertainment and distraction.
How could we have torn our cheeks
and gnashed our teeth, when we were
much amused by apparitions of acrobats,
who were able to leap and rise above
the curtain of our false grief?

Like ghosts always do, one by one,
they jumped and somersaulted into
the thin air around us, tumbling and
flying above our heads. We watched
them until they disappeared from sight –
somewhere way up the path over
a stand of buttonwoods.

Again, someone said it was time to go.
In unison, we adjusted our false faces,
shuffled in step, slumped our shoulders,
and hung our heads. We had to get back
to mourning the dead.

SORROW

2008-10-16T18:13:00.000-07:00

SORROW

I saw your foot
move into my frame,
while I sat motionless
beside the bed of an invalid.

Cry for me,
your foot said,
cry for me!

I have walked around
the earth three times.
I have cut me in half
on the bone of a whale.
I have balanced on the
backs of sweating men.
I have been severely bound.
I have waded through nuclear ash.

I can’t cry for you,
I said,
at least you are a foot!

Suddenly, your soiled rags
could be seen beneath the curtain.
You picked them up with your toes,
as if your toes were fingers;
and one by one you
buried them beside you.

MYSTIC HOUR, BLUE AND PALLID

2008-10-13T06:05:00.000-07:00

MYSTIC HOUR, BLUE AND PALLID

I am becoming Baudelaire’s sick muse,
mostly because of the nightmare visions
I have of myself – hollow eyes, steel hair,
knotted, twisted, burning – silent.

I once carried a dream, as if it were
a child, close to my breast - dying
now – consumptive, a blood veil
covering the one white iris.

You asked me, once, what sense could be
made of the delicate scent hovering around
our bed, as we floated to the moon
to light our torches and to fan the embers
that we thought were dead.

I had no answer then, but this I know -
this long weeping that you hear now, will roll
from age to age, from one generation of
muses to another, until we can no longer
inspire the poets who need us so desperately.

WAITING FOR TED

2008-10-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

WAITING FOR TED

Amid bags of fruit
and coolers filled
with bottled water,
we sat on the bus
waiting for Ted.
We passed the time
in hushed tones
of polite talk and
civil manners, while the hour
to go came and went.
The bus driver shifted
and coughed, as he
ate a donut - wiping

the powdered sugar
off his fingers

onto his clean pants.
An old hippie jumped
off the bus and walked
around studying a map of
an arboretum, as he clicked
his heels and hummed.
The ruddy-faced art
students giggled nervously
in the back of the bus,
eating cold toaster pastries
and reading banned books,

waiting for Ted.
A young woman
fixed her already
perfect make-up
and smiled at herself
in her compact mirror.
Then, just as the
morning sun slanted
through the front
windows of the bus,
Ted showed up with his
big silly face and his fake
radio announcer voice.
Someone flushed the toilet
in the back of the bus,
as Ted bowed and Shakespeared,
“A pleasant morning all.”
I rolled my eyes and sighed

heavily - as I reluctantly
moved my mesh bag of apples -
so that he could sit down beside me.

DEATH OF A GIANT

2008-10-05T08:59:00.000-07:00

Painting by
Merissa Gilbert Garrison

DEATH OF A GIANT

The immense white birch tree
in the back woods is dying -
its broken limbs now pasted
to the sorrowful sky,
as woodpeckers tattoo
its papery white skin
with black funerary designs.
Clusters of insects and blotches of mold
congregate and multiply in its folds
of scalloped bark and toothless grin,
as gatherings of birds in silence, grieve -
on rotting branches like feathery leaves.

ART EXHIBIT

2008-10-01T12:55:00.001-07:00

ART EXHIBIT

I saw your boots at the door.
For years, I thought they
belonged to your father.
I didn’t know your friend
had given you his own boots
to wear when you were ill.

Whose coat did you wear?
Was it yours, or did it belong
to one of your neighbors?
Seeing only the memory of it,
cut black in a triangle corner,
it was hard for me to tell.

Studying your boots
over the shoulders of your admirers,
I noticed perfect scratches on them,
made by thorny weeds
that did not impede your daily walks,
nor hinder your getting well.

I never spoke the words to my companion,
- With his boots, I’ll start my own journey -
but leaning into her,
I saw the image of what I was thinking
painted on her face
in illuminations of ochre and pearl.

Can I borrow your borrowed boots
to trample down the weeds growing
up all around me?

Can I wear them
to walk myself well again?

GERALDINE R. DODGE POETRY FESTIVAL

2008-09-28T15:44:00.000-07:00

My husband and I just rolled in from Stanhope, New Jersey - where we were immersed in poetry for two glorious days. It was overcast and misty in historic Waterloo Village, which was re-opened exclusively for the nearly 20,000 people who showed up for one, two, three or four days of nonstop poetry at the Geraldine R. Dodge Poetry Festival, which ran from Thursday, September 25 through Sunday, September 28. However, the rain didn't ruin a thing, it only added intimacy to the literary atmosphere shared by the poets and their audiences alike.

I have never experienced such a rich wealth of words in so short a time. There were no less than five U. S. Poet Laureates there (Billy Collins, Robert Hass, Ted Kooser, Maxine Kumin, and Charles Simic). They, along with some of the most well known and influencial poets of our day, shared poems, conversation, and private feelings about their lives and craft. There would be many great poets in one spot, giving readings of their famous works. Heady, exhilarating, thrilling...

We floated from beautiful tent to tent, as they lay nestled in and amongst the trees and landmark historic buildings. The tents had identifying names that they borrowed from their nearest structures. Names like...Apothecary Tent, White Barn Tent, Stagecoach Inn Tent, Library Tent, and so forth. My husband and I sat mesmerized at 9:30 Saturday morning in the Sawmill Tent having a conversation on craft with Sharon Olds. She is so honored a poet, receiving awards far and wide, including the Guggenheim Fellowship. She was the State Poet Laureate of New York from 1998 to 2000, and yet there she was, as down to earth as anyone else. When she first entered the tent, she started talking to the tall speakers, asking them what kind of animal they were - in jest, of course, in lovely, lovely jest. And so it was with all the poets, approachable, amiable, and highly entertaining, not knowing their works are stacked up in the corners of my house like columns.

The Paul Winter Consort performed, too. Their music is mingled with the voices of whales, wolves, eagles, and other animals. They performed in the huge main tent, playing instruments of many kinds to the sheer wonderment of the audience. Saturday evening we were invited to howl with the wolves in the recording. Paul Winter asks us to raise our own howls for the betterment of humans and animals in America and all over the world. It became a resounding 'barbaric yawp"! It was so much fun and so cathartic I wanted to keep howling for hours....in my mind, I did.

I cannot possibly write about the entire experience... from "anyone who wanted to" giving voice to Walt Whitman, Anne Sexton, Etheridge Knight, and Sappho in the Gazebo, to the overall feel of the place. Jim Habba, the festival director said he hoped that we would find pleasures of all kinds there, wherever we turned, as we began to relax in the sea of words and images washing over us. My husband and I left Sunday after listening to Ted Kooser read his evocative poetry. Our ears, heads, hearts, and spirits were filled to the brim with metaphors and similes. The words didn't just wash over us - we drank them in like a tonic.

PHOTOGRAPH FOUND IN A CIGAR BOX

2008-09-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Your Kodak paper eyes stare
up at me from your cigar box coffer.
They invite me to know you.

You lived in a Victorian house on Main Street
filled with books on phrenology.
Your husband was more delicate
than you would have liked a man to be.
On Wednesdays, you met with friends for tea.
You had neither the time nor inclination
to work on jigsaw or crossword puzzles.
Secretly, you wished for a child.
You brought a calico cat back to life,
after it had been struck dead by lightning.
You named him Hot Shot. He became
your confidant and lived on with you
for another fourteen years.
You had a passion for Japanese art.
Your corset was never tightly laced.
You learned to ride a bicycle when
you were twenty-three years old and
like your mother, your middle name was Grace.
And every chance you got, you would dance
in the willowed back yard, being careful not to
step on the blue chicory stars
scattered here and there beneath your feet.

POEM FOR THE END OF SUMMER

2008-09-22T18:13:00.000-07:00

Summer ended on cotton threads
overgrown with vines and passion.

And the roses that made me queen
lay brown with abandonment -

scattered now at the foot of Venus,
standing in shadows both blue and cold.

How soft our tongues were in June -
barely touching our teeth,

as we sang the wind back to
the north, and trilled magical

chants in the pale of morning -
before the silence was broken.

EQUINOX

2008-09-20T18:09:00.000-07:00

As still as glass
the first cold of autumn forms.
Then moves, unconcerned as a spirit,
rising up the hollows like smoke
from a chimney rock of long ago.
The smell of it is of all things
natural and radiant, expected.
Its taste is of apples and pumpkins,
and secret honey found caught
in the elbows of ancient trees.
Soft, I catch the essence against
my breast and imagine that I am
allowed to disturb the air with my
breathing. I float, an apparition,
above the dark beaver pond,
where submerged in mire, the silver
scales of fish fall silent and soft
as tongues of prayer.
Nothing rests under the gold gleam
of the Harvest moon.
Nothing sleeps – except for all of us
who linger in the cold mist of autumn.
We sleep so that, narcissistic and exposed,
we can dream about ourselves.