Bev Tappan

Poems

  • FAMILY: TIME SHARING

    Borrowing my daughter’s apartment
    For a family snowshoeing holiday,
    We find appliances intractable.
    In her absence the coffeemaker
    Does not start, the dishwasher
    Stalls and the gas oven
    Ominously clicks before warming.
    Worst of all, the satellite
    Antenna transmits static.

    Possessions, more permanent than persons,
    Protest abandonment by their owners.
    As our dog barks and assaults
    The pen when we depart,
    Her vacuum cleaner coils
    Its cord around our ankles,
    Trash barrels flip their lids, and
    The security alarm rings
    Unceasingly when we set it.

    An audience is sought by the copper
    Musical antique car
    Playing “On the Road Again.”
    Ruby wine glasses wink
    And blush to catch our eyes.
    Things, less transient than humans,
    Fear people may disappear
    Leaving them like seaglass on the beach
    To be repossessed at. public auctions.

  • FAMILY: A WALK WITH A THREE-YEAR-OLD

    We stoop to look at ant hills.
    Her small finger closes the holes.

    Toting their eggs and leafbits,
    Ant workers scurry this way and that, unperturbed.

    “I break them,” she announces.
    In her other hand she holds three straggly

    Buttercups and one lupine.
    Clovers or Bouncing Bet she tosses aside.

    Tickle grass lifts her chin.
    “Let me make me laugh, Grammie.”

    I upend the stem
    To prod a hunting spider, who toad-hops

    Into poison ivy.
    Her ziplock sandals pursue a narrow

    Cement wall, a childsized
    Promenade under a hemlock. Last year’s conelets,

    Brittle and seedless, cling
    To the studs and joists of this cool dark chamber.

    Rapelling past its apertures
    On slender nylon climbing ropes swing

    Casual gypsy caterpillars.
    Bon vivants, they have littered the drive with their leavings.

    Relentless Jenny erases them,
    Stamps them into oily exclamation marks on the tartop.

  • FAMILY: WOMEN’S WORK

    Bluebirds windchiming in the Jeffrey pines
    Make background music as I hook up
    From beneath the burlap white and yellow
    Petals of lotus flowers. Conifers
    Spread green fingers in the sun.

    In Egypt, land of lotus and papyrus,
    Nomadic women day to day
    Weave goatskin pads they stitch
    Into tent sidings, one forever
    Needing replacement. But Hetup-heres,
    Daughter, wife, and mother of pharoahs,

    Rested slender fingers on graceful
    Arms of carved and gilded chairs:
    Borne above the dust by slaves
    And Hatshepsut grasped the crook and flail,
    Herself donning the pharoah’s beard.

    In 1986 Before Christ,
    A scribe advised his son, “Do not
    Become a weaver. They sit all day
    In the house at their looms unhappy as women.”
    My daughters the engineer, the supervisor and
    The shop owner are making their choices.

  • FAMILY: PHOTO OPPORTUNITY


    You are a camera who
    Freezes my picture in poses
    I never intended. “Wait!”
    I cry. “That isn”t me!”
    But you snap the shutter
    And finally mount the prints
    Forever in red leather albums
    Like flies dead in amber.

    Create me instead on videotape..
    Showcase my best or better days.
    Feature me friendly, zestful,
    Dancing or singing. Today
    The pond is a frozen mirror
    Inviting any skaters design.

  • FAMILY: BOSTON FLOWER SHOW

    Blown down the parking lot
    We have come in to a forced
    Spring. Through arches of sunny

    Acacia chains we see glimpses
    Of enchanted nooks: Mole’s
    Beloved boat moored

    Below Rat’s shore –
    Sheltered bungalow: a Victorian
    Broad-brimmed hat

    Under an arbor; Farmer
    MacGregor’s rows of lucious
    Lettuce eyed by Peter;

    Max the wild thing
    Starting a rumpus in the dark
    Forest corner; a cypress-

    Cooled Moorish patio
    Reflected in the tiled pool and
    Helicon beaks from Hawaii

    Garnishing luau fruits.
    But most alluring are jellybean
    Walks between marshmallow cauliflowers,

    A cabbage patch doll,
    Decorated carrot cakes and
    Cookie bushes inside a gingerbread

    Fence: These entrall
    The children and invalids in wheelchairs
    Propelled by aged relatives

    My mother and I, sharing
    One hundred and fifty years,
    Buy pussywillows as we leave.

  • TRAVELS: MEMORIAL DAY IN SPAIN

    MEMORIAL DAY IN SPAIN

    The water tastes like death in the Valley of the Fallen:

    Franco’s cross casts a long shadow

    Between the hills.  How many mothers’ sons

    Are stacked like cordwood in that vast basilica

    Where roses, those old deodorizers, exhale

    Funereal fragrance.  Here the wolf and the lion

    Lie down together: brothers in blue and gray.

    They choked on mule dust and blew up bridges,

    Wearing the delicate stitches of machine gun

    Fire.  Here the Olive barons of Seville

    Do penance once a year for their Contra,

    Their freedom fighter: Franco the Frog, he’s called,

    For all the reservoirs he built that could not

    Wash the taste of death out of his mouth.

  • FRIENDS: SPANISH GETAWAY

    SPANISH INTERLUDE

    (For Pauline)

    Behind us crystal curtains

    Flow over royal fountains.

    Madrid’s sunlight is unkind

    To our aging skin, but her pixie

    Style bridges the years

    Since I last saw my earliest

    Friend.  We were spanked

    For crossing streets and wheeling

    Doll carriages around the block.

    We whispered forbidden secrets

    And played ring-o-leave-o after dark.

    Now we have escaped for a week

    On a trans-world getaway

    From family responsibility.

    Palace flags flap.

    Sipping diet drinks,

    We watch a gardener shaping

    Boxwood towers.  Having sought out

    Marzipan, porcelain and damascene,

    We are free to recall paella

    On Fishermen’s Beach, staccato

    Heels and castanets, Velasquez’

    Golden glow, reflections

    Of roses in Moorish pools.

    Lacy arches, Don Quizote

    Tilting with windmills, olive trees,

    Neanderthal caves on Gibralter, and

    At El Escorial the odor of mortality.

  • NEW ENGLAND: A NEW ENGLANDER REFLECTS ON THE CHALLENGER SEVEN

    In what ways did we celebrate
    The adventurous leap of our space heros
    And heroines into another dimension.
    Their giant step into eternity?

    We who watched and watched and watched again
    The cataclysmic moment of their going,
    Invested with our childhood dreams
    Died along with them, and derring-do,
    That last desperate expedition,
    Rehearsed our own inevitable end:
    Dust to stardust metamorphosis.

    Later we climbed in winter sunlight,
    Leaving bootmarks on the dust of snow
    Clambered over windsnapped oaks,
    Strolled in shadowy hemlock hallways
    Along black waters chanting, churning
    In and out of gleaming ice,
    Gazing finally toward the ocean
    Toward those ashes drifting, spiraling
    Into space and out of sight.

    At home we heard a Mozart requiem:
    Energetic strings, pulsing brass:
    A tribute played to aspirations
    Of seven spirited star sailors.
    In these ways have we mourned them
    And we still do grieve for them:
    Their happy camaradarie:
    Enthusiasts elected for excellence
    With vibrant eyes and winning smiles.

  • JAPAN POEMS: SIGNALING DIETES

    Shinto shrines in Kyoto
    Celebrate rites of spring:
    Tall tourists, compact
    Blacksuited businessmen, and geishas
    Graceful in pink silk
    Stack prayersticks like firewood,
    Arrange on altars carp,
    Orange pyramids, nests
    Of eggs, flowers and autographed
    Bottled sake in rows

    Firemen in red helmets
    Drag hoses close
    To a bonfire draped with evergreens.
    Smiling priests beckon
    Parishioners to wash their hands
    And rinse their mouths at springs.
    Like ibis lifting white
    Wings, black-hatted holymen
    Raise waterfall sleeves,
    Bow, intone, and chant.

    They loft arrows to four
    Compass points over temple
    Roofs. Inflaming cupids,
    They pierce the heart of the pyre.
    A torch, temple ignited,
    Is paraded to climactic union with fresh-cut cedar swags.
    Smoke blossoms and billows
    As laughing priests ladle
    Water onto greens. Smoke

    Tickles the nostrils of the gods
    Until fiery tongues, erupting
    Arouse a passionate inferno
    Consuming the proffered prayersticks.
    Ejaculating heavenward the petitions
    Of another Golden Week.
    An ocean away, on a cloudless
    Mountain top, a radio
    Telescope listens for replies
    From other bubbles of the universe.