I've had difficulty writing this column this month. I thought last week's trip to New Mexico would inspire me and thoughts would pour forth. Ha! Moving around a bunch of 50 or so people all the time and listening to talktalktalk much of the time gave poor opportunity for introspective cogitations. Time spent walking through some of Bandelier National Monument was good, though. The rock walls pocked with caves, the remains of dry stone walls, the brook with a snow-ice skirting, the dry smell of last year's leaves, all left a sensory image. Breathing in the dry leaf smell made me think of Vermont. And I'm thinking of a road trip this June, say, a week driving east, visiting places and friends along the way, a week in Maine, and another week wending my way back. June, and hermit thrushes singing in the woods. Oh, I can hardly wait!
Two friends and I are working with a book called Creating the Work You Love by Rick Jarow, and after this last meeting where we shared what we had written about the stories of our mothers, I decided that this month's column was going to be poems. The easy way out, because I can just tap into my collection. I'll just pick a few out of the A-C section of my notebook.
After "Our Town"
oh Emily, your joy shattered and reformed
the ache of tears spread through me
as I watched you learn the new pain
for you became my mother
with bright hopes ended
yours so abruptly
hers squeezed dry with babies and poverty
a weak husband
how could she love us
with such anger at all that loss of dream
it became a different dream
drove us out or became a trap
her experience of turning off love
echoed in my marriage
the ways of leaving relationships well-learned
the hurt continues on
being shut off and out as a child
shuts out my own children
promises made to myself to never become my mother
shattered
why are feelings so fragile!
souls scarred in childhood
never quite whole again
I am no better than she
for I have scarred souls too
I know what I've done
seeing it in tiny glimpses
for the whole would undo me
piece by piece I accept the blame
maybe she saw glimpses too
but no one could help take on the pain
oh Emily on your hilltop grave
why don't we know better?
(1988)
And Listen
To me springtime was birds
the first music of the earliest redwings
calling down in the swamp
was eagerly awaited on cold March days
and when finally heard, oh, how March suddenly felt spring
sometimes there was still a foot of snow
and cold and how redwings found something to eat
I'll never know
but their black bodies and red shoulders
whirling around the tree tops and echoing each other
sang spring
then robins and robins meant bare ground
though how they could pull worms from frozen dirt
I'll never know
but their singing pulled me into April
even though a late-winging snowstorm could bury them
and April for a day or two
soon a song sparrow singing in the bushes by the window
mother always said
sugaring's done when the song sparrow sings
and usually it was
for the sap changed flavor as the tree buds swelled
when it was warm enough for song sparrows
then each and all would hurry spring and tumble into May
and I awaited the evening prince -- the hermit thrush
singing tumbling echoing notes
in the moments after the sun went down
at last it came
it was never enough
the night came too soon
I would linger for the last echoing notes
and stumble in the darkness home
across the fields
with promises in my heart to come another time
and listen
(1988)
Anger Burns
Anger burns and the fire rubble
Left will smolder for years
Blackened coals with hearts of flame
Waiting for the scrape of pain
To open red hot tongues to scorch and char
Fear damps them down
The white hot passion
The killing fever
To burn with scalding words
Close off the dual vision
That keeps me impotent
Scrape the coals to flaming heat
Speak to ones who share
Who may not know why but
Who know that I am
(1990)
Beautiful Cleo
beautiful Cleo of the long silky fur
tawny lady in shades of brown
with ear tufts curled over the edge
and eyes faintly scowled
whose presence would keep
loneliness bayed
whose only meows
accompanied my singing
who took homage as her due
but did not beg
beautiful Cleo is dead
(1993)
THE BEECHES
look out the window
three slender beeches make a garden corner
pale grey bark splotched with white fungus
rising up the slim trunks
branches dividing and sinuously rising
nodding at their tips to the earth below
slowly dying from root damage when the house was built
leaves turning golden and russet
thinly thinly dying
leaving whipping branches to cross-hatch the moon
look out the window
on a soaked cloud-filled morning
silver boles are darkly slate on the rainward side
moist and deep-toned as the drops slide down
and after a storm-filled night
fresh wet snow balances delicately
and branches bear their burden until the wind rises
look out the window
sap rising and swelling buds become the new year's leaves
a thin canopy against the morning sun
another summer, the roots, another chance to grow
repair the damage of blade and weight
dead branches hide in the grass but the leaféd ones
still sweep the sun and the rain
with one more time to sing
(1992)
The Bells in the Woods
the bells in the woods
that ring in the May
are but thrush voices
to some
just noise
but when spring is such an aching need
each fresh voice from the trees
enters the heart
and bursts the soul with joy
inexplicable joy
ever-expanding joy
who dares explain why simple music
from the throat of a plain bird
can work such miracle
can lift the weight of foot-dragging winter
from the spirit
can answer the prayer for one more spring
the birds are living
one more spring
they have survived the other country
of slash and burn and killing spray
they have survived
and for their own spirit
sing, never dreaming that as they do
our human spirits sing, too
(1994)
A CHILD
a piece of love
a shine of hope
brought forth on faith
that God does love
this earth
these stars
brings so much joy
so also pain
and guides you on
through years of life
grows you, loves you
hurts you, hugs you
a shine of love
a piece of hope
God's faith in
this earth
these stars
(1988)
Cleansing
when words bleed out from me
I must find someone who can undertand
and be the cotton that absorbs
who takes my halting grasp of need
digs to find the brokenness behind the flow
and presses to cleanse the wound
to heal from within I must open the old wounds
and bleed out the anger
the loneliness and the fear
pressing the sides of anguish harder
to make it run cleaner and clearer
until there is no more to bleed away
(1989)
CONSTANCY champagne nights with you and the tall grass recalling long-ago summers of cows and haymows fast cars and trouble trading memories of the woman whose life was the farm whose presence in the rocking chair by the window meant. . . a constancy through all our whirlwinds so does this tall grass field atop the hill that feels like home to you where we watched the moon pass and talked our secrets (1993)
Peace be within you and around you,
Cherie
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