Purveyors of fine poetry since 2003.
“For conversion, there must be a mysterious leap of love.” ~ Susan Howe
4
I must have been ready, for the future rushed at me with the force of a great love. What it had put off for so long now returned night after night: standing beneath my window, it plucked the notes of a serenade on its cardboard guitar. It showed its face full in the lamplight; it opened its mouth and sang, not caring who saw or heard.
“Here is deep memory’s lure, and sheltering” ~ Susan Howe
3
I like the soft grey nets
that rise in the pockets
of the laundry machine,
the hint of damp
mingled with the smell
of soap and water, knowledge
of the laved and clean
already transforming.
“Where a thought might hear itself see.” ~ Susan Howe
2
Is it still there, the park with the circle swings and rusted see-saws, the slides whose curves made gravity seem denser, the stone elephants looking into the distance without seeing? Rowboats drift on the water, couples pass beneath the arms of willows. If you lean out over the wooden pier, the wind might bring the murmur of voices. Flakes of paint might come off in your hands from the railing, the way the rough bark of some trees has a soft underside— like an old language struggling to come back to life.
“The tie between us is very fine, but a Hair never dissolves.” ~ Emily Dickinson
1
In the ceremony, the bride and groom tie identical red bracelets around each other’s wrists then trace a circle around the fire. It’s petal-strewn and everything is so brilliantly outlined in henna and in gold. Somewhere a cymbal bleats its wild and coppery refrain, and water passes through a hundred flutes of wine. We’ll raise our questions to a higher significance then grind them underfoot. Why does love walk so slowly? Why does it wind around and upon itself? Someday we will forget where silence goes in the midst of clamor and noise.
To guard the eye
from too much brightness, they poured
water into a silver basin: and in that lake,
the sun was allowed to cross itself
before fading out of view.
You who came in the middle of winter
and lit a match to hold a flame
in your cupped hands—
only a cleared space remains
where you stood, looking out
over the frozen fields.
In response to Via Negativa: End of winter.
Looking around for gifts at the antique
market, I tell you about the door
that swung those many years ago;
and I, not knowing you
were following behind:
running child, made
momentarily breathless by the smack
of my thoughtless passage— I’m rueful
still, though we know of such things
as accident, as what was never
willful or intended. I touch
gilt-edged books on shelves,
their marbled papers, their worn
cloth cases: in one, a verse sings
of a wilderness made tenable, made
bearable by the beloved’s presence:
A loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou…
and it is possible to endure all
that is or might be difficult.
So we pause at trays of vintage
photographs, gently handling the past—
Red-tinted, fragile, stemmed:
glassware and a box of thin
ceramic thimbles. Faceted
crystal dishes just shallow enough
for finger and thumb to gather
traceries of salt for scattering
on meat at the dinner table—
And I admire the snowy yokes
of infants’ christening dresses,
their thin laundered white
punctuated with asterisks
of threaded silk: who knows
the names of their stitches? But o,
what matter any loss or ruin from which
these finds were after all gleaned?
They live again: clear amber light
globes strung on chains, sleds with red
metal runners, songs whose words
the needle will trace faithfully
around the turn-table— And yes,
the things of this world
might fall away but love,
love is always its own sweet,
persistent palimpsest.
~ for Ina
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
Listen, this is not a joke
or a passing fancy.
A moment can feel ripe
even when it appears with an undercurrent
of foreboding. I don’t know where it comes from:
I don’t see it but can tell you
with utter conviction
that there is a second sky
where everything we’ve ever wished for
has grown roots. Like tendrils,
like the roots of mangrove trees,
they’ve thickened from being submerged
in the syrup of longing.
Then one day, an opening appears.
You feel its magnetic prodding
as you make your way, as your craft
comes nearer and nearer and finally
the shapes of dream villages
rise up to offer fields, hills,
a barn, a room where you might bring
your heavy suitcase and set it down.
In response to an entry from the Morning Porch.
We did not know we were the gold,
but passage was not ours
for the asking.
But having arrived at the threshold
we were instructed to wait
patiently for inspection.
Our mothers said,
Take care to wash under your fingernails.
Whatever mud might have stained your shoes,
a clean collar might save.
Out fathers said,
Be guarded with your joy, even the ordinary
mirth inspired by birds singing.
In these parts, a whistle is an alarm.
We watched
the easy lope of others
as they linked arms and passed
unhindered through doors.
When they crossed the street,
they were unhurried as swans.
The sun glanced off their gleaming
heads and bodies.
It did not seem to matter
what urgencies there might be in the world.
One by one I took an assortment of items
out of the depths for cleaning and winding.
One lung lay asleep; the other traced
feeble circles on a cold saucer.
I rubbed the tip of a raku-fired stone and its face
bloomed like a small moon behind a mountain.
In the closer distance, animals scoured
the lunar landscape for anything sweet.
Given their recent misfortunes,
how could anyone begrudge them?
On the lake, ripples moved
with the slightness of eyelashes.
My heart was a disc of thin bone, a brittle wafer.
Who will help me translate these messages?
In response to Via Negativa: Collection.