BIRTHDAY
I wasn’t born yesterday.
~The Way of Mrs. Cosmopolite, T. Pratchett
I was born years ago in a snowstorm,
butt first, which explains my perspectives:
right is left, north is south, and so on.
There’s something, too, about winter,
blowing snow that blew itself
into my bones. There are things
you won’t understand
until you are so old
that no one alive calls you children.
The patterns, strangeness of passages,
the way the long corridor winds,
edged with fewer doors.
It is right that on this day–
remembering his nakedness, his simplicity,
his begging bowl, the broken church,
the wolf and the birds, the peach–
I should separate my worldly self
from so much busyness, should turn
away from a virtual world.
The real one compels.
The last crickets.
Coyotes in the dark.
The moon rising as the sun sets.
WHAT I DID AFTER YOU LEFT HOME
Went to New Orleans,
walked alone in the early morning.
They were opening windows,
washing down the streets.
Are you ready, M’am?
An old man stood on the cobblestones,
beaming in the steaming light.
He held reins in one crinkled hand,
extended the other to me.
His brown horse shook its head, bells rang.
Ready? For what?
Are you ready for a buggy ride?
I had not planned to act like a tourist,
but how could I do otherwise
in this unexpected land, this place I’ve never seen?
The people sitting above the tall red wheels
were talking and laughing together
like people in a painting, or a play.
The driver cocked his head, waiting for my answer.
I asked the cost.
There was no reason to refuse.
I placed my damp white hand in his,
my hand with the split lifeline,
the single crack foretelling a single child.
Twenty years ago a sibyl read my palm:
You’ll live long, but two lives, different.
You’re a musician. And try not to be so stingy.
Yes of course I’m ready, I told him.
Boost me up.
You, I’m afraid, would have been
disdainful, cool. You would not
have approved of me,
sweating in my purple dress,
gawking, singing along,
leaning out behind the horse’s bobbing feathered head
above the spinning wheels
in that impressionistic light.
I felt a city dawn that day,
saw men in stiletto heels and black stockings
prancing down the shining sidewalks,
artists reaching for long moist shadows,
women like statues, painted gold.
The city smelled like fresh coffee,
sour beer, things frying in lard.
On every bright wet corner
were little children, dancing.
I wrote this a long time ago, in response to the Empty Nest. It ended up being a performance piece.
March 24–November 16, 1999; Jan. 30–April 20, 2001
Quatrain Chapbook: Sing in me, Muse, Feb. 2005
NOTES FOR MY 50TH HIGH SCHOOL REUNION
Once I read Latin, long phrases from Caesar and Virgil.
Now I practice Polish, but only after dark.
Once I played the piano: Mozart, Debussy, Bach.
Now I play simplified Gershwin songs when no one is around.
Once I had a small vegetable garden.
Now it is a jungle of vines and weeds.
Once I fell in love with a warrior.
Some things never change.
Once there was no space for anything.
Now time stretches before me like the sea.
Something happened back when I wasn’t
looking, or maybe I was looking and didn’t care.
Maybe it happens to everyone by a certain age,
or it doesn’t matter. Or it’s what is meant
by equanimity and it’s something to strive for
only I didn’t, or at least I don’t think I did,
and yet, maybe it’s the fruit of all that prayer,
the hours on the front step with my cup,
watching the sun come up, or set.
~Solstice 2017
‘QASIDA
November. I drove through the woods alone.
The chapel had not changed—yellow stone,
pine benches, carven altar, the wide, worn
boards of the floor, pale ceilings adorned
with stenciled flowers. I watched the sun
mark the walls with pattern as it shone
through the western window, low.
Once this was a shelter from the storm
around us. Once, with you, I won
what my heart desired. But you are gone.
On the forest paths, in shadow, once we roamed,
no need for touch or speech. Some
nights we sang by the lake while moon-
light and starlight from heaven’s dome
brushed us with silver. My voice, a golden horn,
blessed the stones with song. Oh, none
but I can praise our music well, or write this poem!
Free and wise and fair were we, born
between the mountains and the sea, who turned
the wild wood into home.
The Qasida is an elaborate form. This is a feeble attempt.
A NAME
. . . Surprise is a name of God.
~Brother David Steindl-Rast
Who else would bring a pair of owls
to circle my head on New Year’s night?
Or a fox to the front step
just at sunset yesterday? Who
could have handed us a little child
with round cheeks, his mother’s mouth,
his daddy’s smiling eyes?
In the gray and icy drizzle of winter,
who else would have sent a foot of snow,
north wind to slice through our dismay?
Or gathered us together
and crowned us with roses,
taught us how to sing?
