LEARNING HOW TO LET GO
The child’s umbilical cord
Is the first binding tie
Which has to be broken.
And then our nurslings must
Be weaned from the breast.
Nestlings have to learn to fly.
The yellow school buses
Take them from our doors.
We share an empty house
With an aging partner or spouse,
Who one day is no more.
Comrades wave their goodbyes.
We all go on our ways,
Turning into memories.
So let us raise a parting glass
To all the loved ones of our pasts.
THE TRAIL NOT TAKEN
(With apologies to R. Frost)
I followed the Great Hill Road,
Heavily sanded on melting ice,
To where it diverged to the wood
And found a parking space.
I took out my snowshoes and poles,
Tightened the bindings twice,
Set out down the trail,
And then I felt the rain.
The mountain had sent forth clouds
Which blotted out the sun.
Much as I longed to go on,
I knew I had to run.
Oh I will remember the way
To that white unblemished path.
I’ll come back on a better day
To trace its beckoning track.
1. KNITTING LESSON
Skeins of yarn on the window ledge
Shine in a basket, spraying winter
Sunlight onto the rusty, homespun
Jacket and faded denim skirt
Of a full-breasted farm woman
Whose arms encircle a daughter’s shoulders.
Her own half-finished sweater laid
Aside on her lap, she leans to the left,
Chin resting on the smaller bonnet,
Bony hands moving small fingers
In the measured minuet of steel needles.
Scissors gleam faintly on the floor.
2. FARMYARD IN WINTER
A small sun, he glows in the gray morning.
Breast and shoulders gold as the stooks of straw
Bundled in front of his thatched-roof hutch,
Comb and wattle red as the robin perched
On the wall above him, a huddle of hens
In the shadows behind him,
Chaunticleer surveys the snowy yard.
Like oil on water, muted echoes
Of his light whisper from granite stones
And roosting hens while two
Industrious wives peck in the snow
That froths and foams across the straw-
Strewn ground, on tree and fence and wall
And distant roof: cumulous clouds
That outline his dominion.
3. POTATO PLANTERS
They bend in tandem: his hoe
Scoops the hole; her hand lets fall
The seed potatoes. Sunrise
Reddens his vest. Her muddy skirt
Is shadowy green. In the pale
Distance bleached horizon,
Mauve town and chartreuse plain
Recede. A sequence of trees is sunstruck,
Sabots and dirt-streaked pants
Share earth tones with the roughly spaded
Ground. A donkey nods by the baby
Basket-cradled under a live oak.
4. SHEPHERDESSES WATCHING A FLIGHT OF WILD GEESE
Her right arm is bent to shade her eyes
From haze-filtered autumn sunlight
That mutes the gold and coral hedge
And dusts a Biblical patina onto sheep,
Tranquil as gravestones, masticating
Olive grass into smoky wool.
Her left hand, palm down,
Signals her companion to be still and hear
The faint and fading colloquy of tourists
Winging away from winter. Her friend
Leans back on the embankment looking up,
Her child’s face soft with wonder.
A REMINDER
This morning while the sun
Shone brightly on my breakfast,
I was surprised by one
Flake of snow, then half
A dozen in a swirl,
A billowing, a crazy maze,
A blinding white, while still
The sun lit up the haze
And shortly chased away
The errant bit of storm
Back to whatever place
It had migrated from,
Leaving me to ponder
How often the unexpected
Causes one to wonder,
Warns me to be prepared.
THE PILLARS
(ON A PROPOSED LOBBY RENOVATION)
THE PILLARS ARE APPALLING:
SIGHT-IMPEDING,
WALK-BLOCKING,
TALK-DEFEATING,
SPACE-CONSUMING,
HOTEL-LOOKING,
STRICT AND LOOMING,
IF THERE’S ONE THING WE DON’T NEED,
IT’S THINGS THAT COME BETWEEN.
REFLECTIONS
In my mother’s mirror with its faux
Ivory, celluloid handle and backing,
I am looking for her, and I see some
Of her and some of my father’s face.
I ask myself why it is that I,
Their only child, should have striven
Always to differ from their prescriptives,
Always to escape their vigilant directives.
Was it the sound of my mother crying
Every Saturday night and emerging late
And red-eyed on Sunday mornings?
Or was it the summer she took the car
And we drove to her friend’s cottage in Hampton
For a week on the shore before we came back
To the boy scout camp my father directed
And they stared at each other while I watched?
Or perhaps I knew at my father’s funeral
To which his handsome, never-married waterfront
Director came, why his grief was greater
Than mine and why the siblings I longed for
Had never arrived. And so I determined
That my sons would have brothers
And my daughters would have sisters,
And their parents would be truly a pair.
So much does my mother’s mirror
Show me as I look for her face
And some of the face of my father
And find at last only my own face.
(March, 2014)
TOUCHSTONE
I was delighted to discover that
The big blue-handled soup bowl
With its fat sergeant major,
Wavy kelp, squid and scallop
Shell, was made in Kuaui.
Dear Lynne: with all her household
Goods she has endowed me and now
She has willed me her son’s memento
Of island bliss: the fierce Na Pali cliffs
Over-watching white sand beaches,
Bright-feathered Jungle Fowl
Parading the streets, kayaking
The Wilua River and then trekking
In Tevas to the Sacred Falls,
Dramatic over-looks in Waimea
Canyon, admiring the green beans
In the Kuaui Coffee Company groves
And then sampling the sacred brew
That even now recalls Hawaii.
MIXED BLESSING
Driving up, I heard and saw water
Pouring from a pipe above the door
Down the wall and onto the walk,
Flooding over the threshold and
Saturating the new floor mat.
Some welcome! was my first thought.
Here I am on my first overnight
In what was to be a snug retreat,
A refuge from the work of pain….
But all was not lost. The plumbers
Shut off the flow and I
Mopped the floor and hung the rug to dry.
I poured myself a glass of wine,
Nuked the soup and veggie pizza,
Turned on the lamps, sat down and
Drank a toast to new beginnings
Feeling somehow strangely blessed
By this most improbable baptism.