Egret on a Guardrail

Today's poem. I really saw such a bird. I sent the poem to my friend Amy, who I love and miss.

Egret on a Guardrail

Beak up, doll yellow inverted snowboard, sharpened at the end like a pencil,
Or your sharpest sword; piercing gaze, laser bird eyeballs
Black and again sharp, obsidian arrow head, tiny suture needle.
Observing cattle, black, brown slowly muddy walls
Of rough animals, shaggy winter coats munch plod along the hill.

Poised, ready, lift to float soar over four highway lanes
70 miles per hour, slick with gray dirty rain wash.
Cars pouring into morning, we scream aim
Our boxes and bodies, steel, fiberglass, swash-
Buckling catapult torpedo bones and brain.

Bird white, a white not made by men.
Quiet watching, watching for what
I cannot know, I’ll see, seek you again
On the guardrail, in dreams, egret.

For Zina Who Noticed the Petals

(A poem from 2001 for my friend Zina who took a photo today.)

The Census

He’s having a great time.
The radio announcer explains the historical relevance,
the number of flush toilets, what time you leave for work,
don’t you see, the sewer schemes, the masterminded water,
plotting traffic like a novel of anthills.

Waiting in my car, as inside a toaster,
my tea in the black and chrome cup with the smart plunger lid,
I finish listening; I am polite and happy.

Outside the wind is blossomy;
on this late March morning the street is a marathon of petals,
each separate from its flower, one of a million,
a gesture of unpainted fingernails,
tiny, white and pink steering wheels rolling
up on their edges, a full field uncounted, racing,
racing, racing like water or children running or rushing
,or even racing like nothing,
racing to be the day.

The Wife

Knees up under pillows
book balanced on the massed
quilts and sheets,
she reads, tea cooling in a blue and brown
mug, leaning against another fold
of bedding. When she reaches
for her pencil, the liquid leans
but does not spill.

Bifocals gangly on the table,
a white plate, crumbs like leaf shadows
in the sunlight on the floor,
she moves the tea mug there, and pulls
up her note book, flexible and empty
now for many months.

The pencil presses against
laundry and gardening cracks
in her thumb. She squints
and leans forward with her gray bangs,
now the sun has slipped to the foot
of the big beg, where a grey cat mocks
sleep, ears alert.

It is so much like a sketch, or a song,
but no one else in the room describes
the angle of the page to catch
the light. No one sees these
adjustments of paper and hand,
pillow and knee. From other rooms
she hears a radio, a bathroom drawer
thud, then another.

They know where to look for her,
should it be necessary, but
they do not come. The wife
reaches for her glasses, her
empty plate, hesitates,
waits.

Long Time New Poem

Wow -- I started a new job and got sucked in like a drowning camel -- who knows where that image came from.

Here are the only two new poems I've written in the past two months, drafts, jottings, musings, stretching the old muscles -- ugh

Still having Eavan Boland dreams.

#1 (for PZ)

No chemo for her
She knew and true
To her heart she blossomed
Into the space around
Where we watch
Each moment with gardenias
And gratitude.

#2 (also for PZ)
Finding An Old Letter From A Steady Friend

Things used to matter so much
I hurt you easily
I was strong, like a vise
around your fingers
where they pointed to
your heart

Now nothing hurts
anymore like a day
you forgot me
standing there not standing
up for myself
down in the gutter of your
laugh

I loved you like a lover
less a friend
we both hated it and
couldn't sleep for the
dreams

Today I re-read your
threats
they seem so small on
the yellowed letter
sweat breaks out
between my breasts
my skin remembers
what I have done under
with my mind
with time
the tip of your tongue
to my ear
lashing --

Working through Boland blogs

I'm starting to do my research for my thesis, and am finding all kinds of interesting blogs about Eavan Boland. Here are two:

Exphrasis: Poetry Inspired by Art and Song of a Reformed Headhunter (Jee Leong Koh) -- the later in particular discusses three poems I've been researching, one about a Degas painting, one about a Renoir painting, and one about an Ingres drawing. Since I'm lazy, I will not post the photos of these artworks, nor reproduce the poems. If you're interested, follow the links. Oh, what the heck, here's the Ingres. I like her clear face, her beautiful skin, her neck, her firmness -- wrapped all up in hasty sketches and ruffles -- a woman in a potato chip.

Long August

It was a great and grim month -- I have a new job, still trying to separate from my old job, my kid's sick (really not nice), the weather has been a disaster, the DNC and then the RNC took up a lot ot time, Sarah Palin gives me the creeps but my husband thinks she's attractive, I'm going to have to give away the tortoise because we really don't have enough space for him -- but on the up side, my sister-in-law is now a thyroid cancer survivor (yeah!), my best friend has her breast tumor downgraded and may not need chemo (double yea!), my son caught his first fish (yum!) and I think I've decided at last what to do with my thesis -- yes, this is a poetry post to this, my poetry blog -- Domestic Imagery in Eavan Boland's Poetry: Aesthetic or Femenist Choices? -- or something like that.

What do you think about this? (from "Suburban Woman" published in The War Horse, 1975)

II

Morning: mistress of talcums, spun
and second cottons, run tights
she is, courtesan to the lethal
rapine of routine. The room invites.
She reaches to flouresce the dawn.
The kitchen lights like a brothel.

Pretty cool, huh? Stay tuned --

About the Night Sky

We've been traveling in Nevada, Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana (also in the Sierra Nevada near Tahoe) for almost two weeks -- the last week before the new moon and now the first week after it. There have been many stary nights. Here's a poem that my husband found on Andrew Sullivan's blog (citation to follow, there was a beautiful photograph with it), but of course we've had Emily to thank for it, for many years now. My daughter is on an Outward Bound trip somewhere in the Montana mountains. I miss her -- and I hope she's having some starry nights and some meditative moments, some altering experiences, of her own.

We grow accustomed to the Dark—
When light is put away—
As when the Neighbor holds the Lamp
To witness her Goodbye—

A Moment—We uncertain step
For newness of the night—
Then—fit our Vision to the Dark—
And meet the Road—erect—

And so of larger—Darkness—
Those Evenings of the Brain—
When not a Moon disclose a sign—
Or Star—come out—within—

The Bravest—grope a little—
And sometimes hit a Tree
Directly in the Forehead—
But as they learn to see—

Either the Darkness alters—
Or something in the sight
Adjusts itself to Midnight—
And Life steps almost straight.