Poetry on 02/24/08
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by ILLIA
On Gathering Poetry Assemble poems from notebooks or envelopes, or those written on the back of shopping lists collected over years and years. Place these poems dressed in their formal attire ready for a black and white ball, to look at you and let you know they are the best they can be. If a poem has a shoelace untied, take time to make a perfect bow. If one's tuxedo needs pressing, iron out the wrinkles. If a poem looks too somber, place a red carnation in its lapel. If a poem plainly does not belong, dismiss it gently, take its phone number. If a poem is too fat, send it to Weight Watchers. It is so thin that it falls between the lines, fatten it up with adjectives and adverbs. If a poem makes you cry, give a crisp white cotton handkerchief. If a poem is too silly ask it to turn over and read it upside down. Then line us those well presented poems and let them nudge up against each other. Watch carefully for those ready to step forward and serve. Gather these lovingly into your arms take them into your heart release them into your first book of poetry. SHOFAR’S CALL Biblical times tell of ram’s horn blown to welcome each New Year. Shofar’s call created by hearty breath forced through calcium curves Splendid sound of ancient prayer announces end of daylong worship. Essence of gratitude for every breath written in the Book of Life. Reading One's Life Aunt Clara, at eighty, writes her twenty-five page autobiography, admits coyly that she enjoys reading it over and over again. And is this not with us all, the desire to make us whole, to pat and shape, to touch over and over that which has become our lives? And words that place on lines of blue on pages of white, take their form. Some shy poems that stretch along borders. Others intricate paragraphs that hold hands and dance their stories as though no one had ever told that enticing tale before. Simple sentences stir memories from the bottom of my mind, float them upward to again feel the warmth of the sun and brightness of light, a breath of brilliance after decades of profound darkness. And as I gather words which, one next to the other, form the fabric of my life, one which I can stroke to know the material which is me, I find fullness. And, like Aunt Clara, I can enjoy reading my life, no matter how difficult, over and over again MY FATHER AND I Standing on a stone wall Looking through the wrought iron, I search the street for sign of my father the beginning shape of a man then the dark of his suit then the wave of his hand and soon the smile on his face and after the squeak of the opening gate I feel the warmth of his arms lifting me to him holding me ever so tightly telling me without words that I am loved. FADOS The washerwomen and the maids all hurry to pack our suitcases and steamer trunks. My woolen dresses, that Mother always knits, click, click, and click on wooden needles while Daddy reads and smokes sweet-smelling pipes in the evenings. No room to take the wooden hoop, perfect tall circle I make go over cobblestones on the way to the beach, I hold on to my doll with blue eyes and black hair. So much rush, rush, rush. Daddy came home with a visa, a paper that lets us goes away from badness. But I don’t know badness, except for Barbara, who gets to buy all her dresses in the store and always teases me about my knit dresses that all look alike except for the colors. If it is good to go away, why is there crying, crying and crying? Mother cries as she says good-by to Alice and Clara and the maids cry in the stucco washhouse. I sit in the people-smelling laundry, nestle into the corner and wait for songs that sing to me about sadness, but still make me feel happy as I look at a blue sky that holds up the clouds. Daddy and I don’t build sandcastles now, at the wild ocean that ate Daddy’s friend. Will the waves be angry on our trip? I’m only six, but I feel that I add up to a lot more than, two and two and two. Lunar Child Three year old learns of moon's cycles watches its reflection delights in two moons one high, one low. As she grows she will learn of her own cycles find comfort by knowing it is all right to feel both high and low and all this grown up talk of moderation is just the way of people who do not stop to look at moons. Hands Patting flour into mixture of water, salt oil, egg and yeast, her small hands roll and braid dough into length and width that rises into twice its size bakes to blond/brown crispness cools on wooden rack on the kitchen counter. At redwood table her hands at ease beside a cup of tea. His large hands sand paint from the bow of his teak boat, its sails rolled to rest. Maroon speckled sawdust falls to the ground. August breeze lifts traces of toil as he hums ìf I were a carpenter and you were a lady She brings him first slice of butter-shiny bread still warm from birth. He dusts his hands on his overalls breaks the offering offers her half. Tahoe Gloaming On wooden deck, nestled in canvas chairs, wearing long-sleeved garments protect our arms from stray thirsty mosquitoes, we await nature's nighty imminent chill. Diaphanous haze of gentle golden-reds, glamorous as modern dancer's gown, the veil through which nearby mountains proclaim their stalwart presence, Lake's carnelian depth hint at purples near almost stillness. Even blue jays silence their gossip as a single dark gray bat zips out of hiding, announces evening's silhouette. Aunt Ann, with invisible threads, gathers a summer of family, friends weave an audience, young and old, to witness late afternoons, salient, subtle endings, transitions almost too potent to honor fully alone. The Sea of Cortez I, born on a cold January night wonder if my death will hold a breath of frost or will I, who knew well the touch of love leave one day taken by the wind like that which blows the January morning sternly bends palms into vivacious ballet then calms to allow dancers deep bows at performance end. Listening to the scratch of pens and pencils leaving traces of telling, giving of ink or lead to become an impression that allows remembrance its place, I almost hear the written word. There is a beauty in this large classroom, a willingness of spirits as moments arrive, individually unwrapped, contents often familiar to more than the original author. And so we find, in older age, our journeys hold us up with notes of courage, endurance risk and humor to soothe pain, that visits us with greater regularity. The music of creation greater than the sound of simple gliding along the lines informs us that we know the melody as we fine-tune the lyrics. |
THE FARMER'S MARKET There is a whistle blower at the Farmer's Market, the women are fast, I much slower. At the start each has a basket. When the whistle sounds, blown by a young lass, buying "organic" just abounds. But for me, I needed a class to know when and where to go just what to purchase and why, while the ladies all in a row knew everything right to buy. One of them told me about arugula. Another helped me open the bags. Their smiles seemed like at a gala. Only us men seemed like old hags. Who, pray tell, paid the whistle blower, I wondered, but even that was answered. She manages the whole organic shower before the likes of which I almost cowered. WHAT MAKES… What makes the bluebird sing? What lights the morning sun? What causes bells to ring? What makes the rivers run? Spring days inspire the bluebird songs. Spinning earth makes mornings bright. Pulling ropes makes dings and dongs. While falling water runs rivers out of sight. But I ask what starts each day for me? A blessed sleep and work to do, a life to live for others and it's she, my wife of thirty years but still as new as air I breath and the glint I see in her eyes and in the morning dew. What more could ever wake me up to be except the peace that all creation's due. LAST EVENING Last evening's water on the bay shimmered in multiple directions by freshets of random wind coupled to a cloud dappled sky. Nothing heavy, more like some light fingered allegro played by a master improvising beyond the composer's score. So varied, so delicately moving, fractures of light splintering everywhere, that I could not concentrate on conversation with even the best of friends. AN AQUIFER OF HOPE August dreams may sour by September unless watered by tears and laughter. Anything can go acid when left alone. Since summer dreams come only once a year, the looming equinox will spoil them without an aquifer of hope which in turn brings tumults of feelings, the rich, sad, joyful source of what we must have to live along with drops of renewing rain. PLAYING WITH SADNESS I play around with sadness Imaging nightmares While blessings pour over me, Alternately drawing the fate Of this loved one or that In order to prepare myself For the inevitable Which would break my heart anyway. Perhaps I can't stand The happiness I have And must drift back into Human scale sadness Which so surrounds My little swirl of life Finding strange rest Among "the thousand shocks" Of our inheritance. To rest in blessing Is another dream-- Why not as real, I cannot fathom-- It flits firefly-like In the darkness I create. Or is it after all The summer evening glow Of my own demise, And I am playing kick the can Once more in the dusk of things While my children and theirs Shout for joy? THE ANCIENT METAPHOR Sometimes I crawl back into this ancient metaphor. Great hymns call me. Psalms I remember reach out, Parables catch me fish-like on the hooks of their posed dilemmas. Back inside I move in and out of sacramental rooms. Icons flash gold-green light. Consoling dogmas hang on the walls, while Balms from Gilead mingle with holy water. Everything does its work for a spell, and my emptiness fills with features I can parse. But something else is there prompting me to leave the encircling warmth, something counter-soul lurking in ecclesial shadows, crouching behind icons, promising to give more than they possess, deflating holy words back to their limited power, which try to keep me from the wild, rushing maelstrom of life outside the gates of Eden. WINTER'S LIGHT Winter's light gives back its loss to shadow by sharpening everything it reaches, making bark on trees metallic bright, window panes sparkle in spite of dirt and dust, while unmistakable lines demarcate the dark and light of everything. So my memory, dust worn through age, unfolds by grace of this season, giving back what I swore I'd never forget but did. Will Spring time mean Forgetting again? I pray it will not since so much of life is memory not dwelt in but inevitably brought to each new moment like a descant over the new day's notes. Sing I must! And with thanksgiving, the song I'm given, but Sopranos rise above my base, making grand and lovely what may be very ordinary. IT DOESN'T MATTER "It doesn't matter," she said, lying because she knew the universe is just that, a reality where everything matters. Not that we are obliged always to connect the dots, and certainly not take apart and count, often a way of denaturing instead of opening everything of life each moment holds. But back to what she said that didn't matter but did, though not in the way he refracted it out of its wholeness taking the green away from the blue, the orange from the red so no rainbow was left. They had been driving in the country for no reason which included every reason, through green fields, trees, hills in the distance, flocked skies, when she had asked him to pull over for a moment. He, being a counter, kept driving and said, "We'll be late." To what she wondered, and lied, "It doesn't matter." He thinking time in minutes instead of moments, thereby throttled her thought, that everything she wanted or needed was almost in her grasp that moment. Meanwhile he was a mile away by then, leaving her under a spreading oak, arms on a rail-fence, eyes delicately teared, sunlight glistening on her face. WHO WILL I BE I'm harder to define now for having so much of me being others who have not just shaped but entered who I am that were I asked, "Who are you?" I would not know without citing a string of people so long, so wonderful that you would tire of my answer. Even then I would not have mentioned a thousand communions with fields, hills, rivers and trees, even certain skies and surely seas that have recomposed me into something I was not before. Today I was added to by a complete stranger, so big, strong, I was afraid until he held my hand and said, "We should meet again," as now we have, leaving me looking forward to whom I will be tomorrow. REQUIEM FOR A MOLA MOLA (euthanized in the ides of February 2008 for being sick and not eating) Slow can be beautiful, graceful. Speed is not everything. He "Ty Chied" his way around our housebound pond, eyeing us as we eyed him, wondering, always wondering, how such an extraordinary creature came to be. Perhaps it is known, evolutionarily speaking, and if so, we might discover that we are related gene-wise, the more to cherish our already large affection for his so different immensity. Not knowing the gender until his demise, we guides and aquarists marveled that the female of the species could launch three hundred million eggs into a dangerous yet habitating sea, or stand thousands of parasites within and about its body without apparent complaint, and then, beyond belief, this fish could even loft its enormity, and its passengers, altogether out of the encompassing sea. All these gifts and traits, seen or unseen, were for us, an any day charge of astonishment and awe. More than any fish, this one, so it appeared, looked at us, eyeball to eyeball. Only this one in the outer bay window slowed down, treading water, allowing us to examine every detail of its languid largeness. And who would not identify with its ability to swim sideways on either side, go up, down transecting the giant tank, slowly with majestic grace. We've seen children turn away in dismay, adults drop their jaws as slowly around a corner its extravagance would gradually appear in fullness. Will I be euthanized when I grow listless and am not eating well? It might be better that way, and I trust it was for our giant friend since I also trust the aquarists who so carefully and kindly watch over those creatures to whom we and so very many become attached. Still there is something sad about it all that such unexpected, unimagined magnificence could not end in the sea from whence it came. Thank God there is still a little one there to salve our sorrow. But now we are lesser for its greatness gone. And our spirits will be paupered if we forget its grand displacement in our pool, and even more, its kind in oceans far and wide, where, we pray, by that which unites us all, his soul now so resides. EVENING PRAYER Let me wash myself to sleep with song, my soul to keep, and take the time to pray for all the bounty of this day with praise and thanks to Thee, and awe before their mystery. For Ann and all she does, friends, children and their loves, rain, Sun, Moon and Stars, the gift of life, the end of wars. Then let tomorrow's day awake that I may live for other's sake. Now wrap your hidden music way around the tendrils of this day, so partial yet replete, unfinished still complete, powered beyond its time and place to fit within another space, where I will not begin to know the way to be or where to go, but only there to risk and share a larger love, a greater care, in deeper, higher song, for which my soul does long. |
Copyright © 2008, Illia Thompson the Reverend George Wilson, All Rights Reserved