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Text of Poems - Rites of Passage and Other
Journeys
Adrianne (2006)
Awaiting
Harvest (2003)
Birthday
Candles (2003)
Carousel (2003)
Elegy for a Brown Velour Sofa
(2003)
Exhale (2003)
Intermezzo
(2003)
In This Year of Patience
(2006)
Landing (2003)
Ode
to the Midnight Special Bookstore (2003)
Oxalis
(2003)
Questions (2003)
Revolution
(2009)
Silver (2003)
Through
my Fingers (2009)
To be a Strong
Woman (2007)
Tsunami (2005)
Adrianne
Her presence persists in the photos in the coffee shop,
but
there are cups of tea NOT being ordered
and there are
questions being asked.
Her absence leaves steps without sound,
silent poetry on
desperate waves
and streaks of blood on porcelain skin.
What lingers and haunts me now
is alien and distant and
altered
a touch withdrawn in shame and fear.
Awaiting Harvest
His cherry tree has fruited
for the first time this
very year.
We might expect a pie or two in early summer.
Will
my fingers fashion a tender crust
to cradle the succulent
fruit,
or will it lay prey for the birds?
The blossoms on his peach trees
survived the late
frost.
Already he props gravid branches with stray
lumber.
Will I bruise them for wine
and macerate them for
jam,
or will the wasps mutilate their tender skins?
He has struggled with pruning
the apples and the
pears.
His efforts will yield abundance in the fall.
Will
steam waft from the kitchen
redolent of my mincemeat,
or
will the worms take the crop?
Our hop vines have profited from the cool spring.
They
have entwined the porch railings
and cones are forming.
Will
his brew pot run over with bitterness,
or will harsh winds rob
their essence…
following in my wake?
Birthday Candles
A flame is remembrance:
We light long burning candles
to commemorate the deaths of loved ones.
A flame is hope:
We light candles in prayer
to reach
our dreams and overcome our fears.
A flame is passage:
We light hoards of tiny candles
then
quickly extinguish them to cheer survival.
The flames we hold inside
are fragile enough
that
breathing too much
might snuff them,
and breathing too
little
might starve them.
I gasped with the pain of living
nearly smothering my
flame,
and responded by creating
monochromatic
numbing
illusions to enfold me.
With each assault
I wrapped this blanket
ever
tightly about me
until it became my winding sheet,
as my
flame grew dim
and ashes fell around me.
A flame is resilient:
Somehow it knows to keep
burning;
somehow it finds pockets of breath.
A flame is persistent:
Smoldering, flickering and
blazing
through adversity, adventure, and ascension.
A flame is eternal:
A phoenix gathers itself from its
ashes
and burns with a fiercer light.
Today I light two candles:
A yarzheit candle for the
fragile woman who was,
and a votive candle for the woman yet
to be.
Carousel
My daughter and I both listen to our blood.
She waits eagerly for its first twinge
and I wistfully
for its last wail.
She squints in search of the first delicate
blond hairs
while mine coarsen and silver.
She waits impatiently for her curves
while I struggle to
keep them under control.
She preens coyly in front of the
mirror
while I attempt camouflage.
She is frightened by her fits of temper and turmoil
as
much as I am by mine.
She giggles with giddy infatuation
both
recent and distant to me.
She wears my earrings in her newly pierced ears
and I
wear her crystal charm for memory.
She twirls as her own
carousel, blond hair flailing straight
as I take a different
turn on the wheel of life.
Her eyes sparkle with the newness of living
while mine
shine with steady eternal fire.
China Cup
She’d contrived some excuse
to invite me to her
room.
I played along with the ruse,
nervously talking of
trivialities,
my heart in my throat.
Perfect porcelain, China silk,
beads of dew on her neck
and temple
anticipation shining in her eyes.
We caressed
one another with lingering gazes
standing on the edge of
perdition.
Her eyes prayed for direction
every breathless word an
offering.
Furtive moves closed the distance
yet stigmatic
hands were still.
A brazen desk lamp illuminated the Catholic scapula
Carefully discarded over the chair beside us.
Elegy for a Brown Velour Sofa
I remember peering curiously into
a bright blue
Community Cleanup dumpster
at the worn brown velour sofa
an
oversized, overstuffed relic of the disco age
ignominiously
tipped up on one side
pride stripped away
black chintz
underlining torn and flapping in the crisp breeze
of a perfect
fall day
Its springs sagged
and we propped it with plywood.
Its
buttons popped off
and we clipped the jagged stems.
The
pile had worn to naked black roots,
and the dust of ages
rose
when its sleeping form was roused,
but ten years of
our lives together
are enmeshed in the very fabric
Where you took my face in your hands
on our first date.
Where we surrendered to desire
one July afternoon
after
three days of touching only with our eyes.
Where our guests
lounged and ate Chinese food by
flashlight
during the hurricane after our wedding.
Where I laid in helpless despair
as our first child
drained its life from me.
Where I sat in state, like a Madonna
nursing our
daughter, and later our son
dreaming of their futures.
Where it cradled my dishrag form through pneumonia
when
I feared I would pass not only from life
but from our young
son’s memory.
Where it supported your ice-packed,
Morphine sated
joints
through reconstruction.
Where we comforted
fevered, pox riddled children
with
Popsicles and Dr. Seuss and Betty Boop.
We have excavated Legos and barrettes,
scraped away Pop
Tarts and lollypop sticks,
shared laughter and
triumph,
watched the world parade by,
recoiled in horror at
death and destruction,
numbed ourselves with A&E and
Discovery,
cuddled our children before sleep,
collapsed in
exhaustion.
Love-bed and sick-bed;
There is an open, pregnant,
expanse in our living room.
We are adjusting, adapting,
evolving
And your divots in the carpet are fading.
Exhale
Do you think you could pencil me in?
I know you have a
full docket
but perhaps a few minutes
in your busy
schedule
wouldn’t be too much to ask
for me to exhale.
Intermezzo
We all had a standing date on Tuesday nights
Stitch and
bitch, Sushi with Swayze
Free psycho-analysis of our failures
to understand the men in our lives
Mutual rationalization
for pizza and chocolate
One by one, and two by two
our numbers dwindled
as we
took refuge in the stability of marriage.
Tuesdays of women
were replaced with Saturdays of couples;
everything in
comfortable even numbers.
As the sole survivor on our island
I cast messages in
bottles
that bobbed in a silent sea.
I’d done nothing
wrong.
My singleness didn’t fit.
I came to understand the silence.
It was our
independence that brought us together.
We unfolded so
easily
yet withdrew and departed so suddenly.
An emotional
elasticity
born of the habit of accommodating our men.
I adapted.
I formed new relationships.
I discovered new
paths,
until one day I was the one
driving a moving van on
the Cross Bronx Expressway
with never a backward glance.
Marriage afforded us the luxury of
turning in, turning
away,
turning towards familiar and predictable comfort.
I
had forgotten the seductive delight of a woman’s
confidence
until I yearned to open the blinds.
I spread furtive wings
and their tips touch others.
We
find one another through divorce and discovery.
We regroup and
re-script our lives,
writing ourselves as the protagonists.
And now I’m standing in a driveway
by another
well-packed van,
bestowing a timid confused embrace,
and
watching a bit of my heart
drive away with shining eyes…
to the arms of her lover.
In This Year of Patience
In this year of patience
I have been tested
and found
wanting.
In this year of patience
I have shunned your touch
to
protect you.
In this year of patience
I have learned to make choices
and to suffer for them.
In this year of patience
I have fought for solitude
and
found loneliness.
In this year of patience
I have found the courage to
live
And set my face to the future.
Landing
Is there a moment
when you feel the meager thread
to
which you grasped
fray its last and slip?
Do you feel yourself falling
or know you’ve already
landed?
Do you mourn the last filaments
of bonds that
needed breaking
or just cut the parachute loose
and walk
away?
Should you have noticed the gradual fraying,
the threads
departing the whole?
Should you have tried to mend it?
Should
you have known it couldn’t hold?
Ode to the Midnight Special
Bookstore
Your aisles whisper to me
in a perfume of paper and
linen and gilt
rising from carefully numbered
lovingly
packed boxes
joyfully flung open.
I long to stroke polished paper covers
against my
cheek
and slide my fingertips
over the rough cut page
edges
of cloth bound tomes.
I hear the secretive crack of the spine
As I gently open
a long slumbering volume.
The scent of ink and glue rises
speaking in
tongues
storming the castles
shouting with a thousand
voices
to the quivering rain.
With wit and wisdom
malcontent and delirium
collective
joy and angst
ooze from pages crammed full of
voices that
could not be stilled.
Faucets that dripped, dripped, dripped
until they were
impatiently
thrust on full
spending themselves dry.
Oxalis
Why does the Oxalis keep coming back?
I never water it
I
only occasionally remember to
remove handfuls of dead
leaves
from its dusty ceramic bowl.
Each time I am
convinced of its demise
and prepare to pitch the dead mass
I
am foiled by happy new leaves, peaked blossoms seeking the
sun
and tender, bowed shoots
pushing through the loam and
gnarled stems.
Questions
Does it matter how you enter the maze
as long as you
keep moving your feet?
Does it matter which two pieces of the puzzle first fit
as
long as the last one fits?
Does if matter who inspires you to pose the question
as
long as you frame your own answer?
Revolution
What is a revolution, but a turning around?
Imagine
billions of individual revolutions,
revaluings and
reinventions.
Meditate on windmills and the rhythm of the
tides.
Turn your own blades backwards,
and let the breeze
propel you -
blossoming into simplicity,
simplifying into
abundance.
Silver
I do not fear time.
I will not be a grande dame
with
blue roots -
A caricature of myself.
I will be a swaying silver birch
and embrace my maturity
and my wisdom
as one in a sacred grove -
A wellspring of
strength.
I will wear my silver
like a crown
like a halo -
as
a goddess incarnate.
Through my Fingers
With dissembling words and coy glances
She led me to
stray to her room.
I shyly played a false
confidence,
concealing my giddy fear,
willing my heart from
my throat.
Perfect porcelain, China silk,
beads of dew graced her
neck and temple,
anticipation shone in her eyes.
We
caressed one another with lingering gazes
standing on the edge
of perdition.
Her eyes prayed for direction,
every breathless word an
offering,
a plea for absolution.
Furtive moves closed the
distance
yet my stigmatic hands were still.
In the brazen light of her desk lamp
the honorable eyes
of her family
downcast in the glare.
Her Catholic scapula
swung gently,
guiltily from the chair beside us.
To be a Strong Woman
You tell me I’m a strong woman,
as if that were an
honor, instead of a cross to bear
When you tell me I’m a strong woman,
You’re telling
me that I don’t have the right to fail, to hurt, to fall.
Yet, when you tell me I’m a strong woman,
you expect
me to be there for you, when you fall.
When you tell me I’m a strong woman,
you’re telling
me that I’m not allowed to be human.
Tsunami
In Aceh, the children played on the white sands
while
their fathers cast their nets.
When the sea was sucked back,
they gazed in wonder at
the still mud
littered with thousands of gasping fish.
They scampered onto the fertile fields with delight
bare
feet slapping with the fish tails
to gather the unexpected
gift.
They didn’t know they were picking flowers
for their
own graves.
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