Seeker Magazine

Tamara Jenkinson

I was born in England in 1953, the middle of three kids. My mother is Russian, my father Anglo-Irish. We soon left for County Cork, Ireland, where we remained until I was ten. Then I went to a convent school and lived there eight months of the year. I have fond memories of the Sisters of St. Mary the Virgin, all mothers by reflection. There, in the semi-monastic rhythms, I learned to love poetry. I think it was the scriptures, read with reverence, that first excited me about poetry. If we were lucky, we were chosen to be lectors at Mass. I was lucky. I think I was an obnoxious interruptive kid. And I still struggle with timing in all areas of my life.
I remember the excitement when the librarian found that we had a first edition of T.S. Elliot's poems. I was about 13 when I read "The Wasteland." I can't say it made much sense to me, but the rhythms were so compelling. I loved Dylan Thomas. I had an LP (vinyl cut record) of "Undermilk Wood" and the "Child's Christmas in Wales." We had a poetry ring, about three of us. After the lights were officially out, we spent long hours reading to each other.
Now I write on sleepless nights. I have shared poems through local poetry readings and a few local publications, Trinity County Poets' Chapbook, "Arts Alive", Poetry Magazine Online. I am learning that I am not the poems I write... they come through and are gone; sometimes remaining relatively uncontaminated by the vessel and sometimes not. Surely they are not very important; but how wonderful it is when people connect through poetry! It is a spiritual high.
For bread and butter, I am a social worker and this, too, is a spiritual high. Mother of five, grandmother of two, married and manic, I live in a remote area in northernmost California with my husband (artist/signpainter/ musician), my two youngest children, a dog, a cat and three goats.

Sighting
Blind in this musty darkness.
This little tower of truth that stands alone
On the fringe of oaks.

Lichen hangs and bats hang too
Quietly though the light hours.
At night they search.
They flit and play.
They love and die and have their meaning in the dark

I am a messenger bat;
Once saw the wide ocean all of us can hear
Hiding here, protected under trees.
I have not always been a bat
Will not always be.

I remember an angel flight with sighting of iridescent tides.
A waning moon a week from full
Still lights the water and the moving waves sigh.
Jelly fish shine vulnerable and soft on the sand.
The roar, the roar of the waves reaches
Even the towers in the trees.
And us, hidden under stones of slate.

Stairs spiral into mist.
We hang in
Watchtowers, trembling in the vigil hour.

Light Morning of the Soul
Well lightly the fullness of clean water
Laps where you never thought of dirt
And the wind leaves no dust
On blades sharp for the unfolding
Green. Horses
Frisk unsaddled on the sod,
Hooves still unshod and waiting
For the farriers rasp.

Spring has no destination.

Entering the Cloud
First he believed in his own castle;
Rightly so as he stood in the shadow
Of its huge presence.
Turrets far above him and tall
walls surrounded, reached,
Brick-faced red.
How could he doubt when the
Doors opened so smoothly,
Huge oiled hinges silently obliging?

He believed his own castle
Housed a conquering force.
Fathers and uncles and yes mothers,
His first,
Bathed him in a thinking beauty.
His castle,
An assured inheritance,
A shining coat many-colored .

Spared pain, softened, and led to believe
There were none without name
Oh the shame, the shame of it;
None other in this clean
And lonely misting place.

He searched the cool skies idly for fun.
Rainbows burned the backs of his eyes.
He stood, head up, a deep yearning propelling him
To leave and then he saw her,
Hope riding on young horse legs,
Feet drumming a certain beat
On the wide boards of the bridge.

Now into a night alone,
Now into a mapless adventure,
He bellowed an invitation and of course she ran.
He followed and surety slipping away

Found his mount
Entered into chases which left him breathless and cresting
Wishing the horses' wind would hold
He would ride wild whether reined in or not.
Rain would not dampen or pain him then.
His bones did not ache, just a twinge in his fingertips.

The road turned trail, narrowed.
Trees held him to a course not of his own design.
Slower now, and shivering, the pace a careful picking of the way
Urged ahead with catching breath
Snailing steeply trailing his castle dream like wet rigging
Him and his tack rubbing the poor horse's back
Sweat frothing around the pads
Saddle sore.

Oh there must be more
An easier way than this.
Surety crept in again like a friend.

Surety upheld him
One with tired mount
Rounded the trees
Saw meadows expanding.
Lord, his back would lie flat
And the deer come 'quisitive licking for salt,
The thin air drier and somewhere,
The sussurant water.
Surely he would leave his mark, he would
Sing of it; they would listen.
They would clothe him in glory again,
Covered and warm in some castle bed
Sucking milk-fed and soft
remembering
Sleep...sleep
Blessed by the dusk.

Horse Trading
We eyed each other
Over the back of the horse.
It seemed I knew him from
An Irish childhood,
A quiet man
From point-to-points
Small shadow
In the distance walking
Among the bodies of horses.

Maybe raised in open spaces,
Maybe mud-booted
His way to school,
Left the wellies at the door
And sock-footed through days
Unremarkably.

Almost twenty years have past.
Driving by the field
Before the church,
I see her weekly, strong,
Still round of rump,
Still thriving in her age.

But what of the man?
Does he live?
He must be seventy now.
And do the horses still
Wait at his command?
Or must he rely on memories
As I do?

The Sisters
Some sisters smile and slowly
Their dark bodies sway down slate-floored
Halls. Sandles squeak.
A solid life, time-measured and ignored.
This is an order of teachers,
An order of women who work.

I played between them, the strict
pattern of the days a comfort.
The ring of matins, ring of vespers,
Ring around the roses lightly
Sang me into summer and away.

Rituals, like pipes are easy to pick
Smoke rings float in the warm eve
Lying in the long grass
Heedless of mosquitoes
I wandered into a future
Worldly, weighted and mine.

We Who Wander, Nowhere To Wash
We've been on the road a long time now, Dolly and I. Dolly has lost all her drive, Dark circles under her eyes. My clutch is going. I cannot engage. I tend to spin into high revolutions. Speak too fast, too much, Too brightly and vacantly smiling. Explaining to pastors and intake workers, Glib for those who'll listen. I am tired of complaining. Tired of the telling I edit, I polish, I lie..... Can I Be accurate? I need my grandmother here. My uncle That man they called my father. I am dazed by the requirements of so many states I work the shifts, Quick change the gears. Judge the judging of us... lazy.....crazy.... so many tears, White bread and canned foods begged from back rooms. I am tempted to say it is like a river trip, Long and winding. We are carried like flotsam. Dumped in a dark eddy here. Some undercurrent keeps us still. But rivers do not flow uphill like this, And there's nowhere to wash.

(Copyright by Tamara Jenkinson, 2000 - No reproduction without express permission from the author)

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Letter to the Author:
Tamara Jenkinson at poetry@goldstate.net