Messengers of Odin

Yosemite Raven

—Poems and Photos by Nancy Haskett, Modesto, CA

I speak to the raven

at Olmstead Point
as he struts around
on the asphalt,
glossy and black
like winged obsidian;
I admonish him,
because he is too elegant
to walk between cars,
hop the curb to the overlook,
lower himself to the wiles
of a marmot or Steller’s Jay,
become a common beggar.

He cocks his head to listen,
speaks in guttural clicks and knocks,
then gives a mournful,
hollow, high-pitched murmur
to admit his downfall,
lowers his body,
pushes forward off the ground,
spreads his wings and soars over the wall,
floats down into the Valley
with regal grace,
befitting a messenger of Odin.

__________________

NATIVE

Dakota, Choctaw, Wampanoag, Comanche—
names that echo off canyon walls,
blow in the wind over prairies,
rise fiercely from flames of burned villages
in smoke as ephemeral as government promises
proven false.
Warriors, weavers, hunters, herders,
once their drums were the heartbeat of this nation
they called home
before they lost the land,
sacrificed it in trade for horses, guns,
measles, smallpox,
boundless land exchanged
for desolate reservations,
countless lives lost in vain.
Yet, the names live on
as we speak the places:
Ma-sa-chu-sett, Minnesota, Monongahela,
Tehachapi, Narragansett, Rappahannock—
as we breathe life into the names
every day
the land remembers

 Crosswalk, Abbey Road, London

ABBEY ROAD

I.
My granddaughters think it’s some kind of magic,
how I know which song comes next—
that Something follows Come Together,
how Golden Slumbers morphs right into Carry That Weight—
the way I can sing the upcoming notes before they are played,
how I know almost every word
from every track by heart;
maybe someday they’ll play one of their CDs over and over,
one hundred times, two hundred times,
like we played that record in the fall of ’69,
the early months of ’70,
down in the church basement,
the one we converted into a “coffee house”
called the Free Spirit,
spent hours playing pool with that album on the phonograph,
finished Side One I Want You,
flipped it over Here Comes the Sun, again and again
so that now, in my car over forty-five years later,
when the songs play I hear
the echoes of billiard balls
click and knock together—
the background accompaniment
of percussive apparitions

II.
The studio and crosswalk are still here,
but the painted lines are different now,
and it’s a busy street;
everyone waits until it’s clear
in both directions,
steps out and walks to the opposite corner,
tries to picture the album cover—
first John in white suit and tennis shoes,
Ringo in black with boots,
Paul barefoot, cigarette in his right hand,
George last in denim blue.

We cross the street today
and despite all the years and changes,
there is a connection,
a contentment,
knowing we are here where they were

___________________

THE IMMIGRANT IN 1900
    
knows steerage and squalor,
suspenders, shirts of heavy ticking;
labors in a Lower East Side sweatshop
filled with whirring machines, smell of new leather;
he dines on potatoes, cabbage, bread,
an occasional apple or turnip,
strolls on Sunday past Delancey Street delicatessens
offering pastrami, knishes, borscht, bagels,
while pushcarts proffer pickles, baskets, door hinges and more;
he walks down Mulberry Street to Chinatown
wanders among live goats, pig carcasses, perfume of incense.
He dreams the American dream—
the dream of men who stay at the Fifth Avenue Hotel,
the ones who smoke cigars, use brass spittoons,
wear gold fobs across silken vests,
bowler hats and stiff white collars,
spat-style boots with buttons on the side—
the shoes he cobbles each day but can’t afford.
He dreams of the Adriatic Sea,
cerulean coastal waters of the home he left in Ancona
before the Passage, before Ellis Island;
in his sleep, he takes a spoonful of brodetto,
tastes the oil, garlic, saffron, the pecorino cheese,
walks along the Italian beach in bright sunlight—
opens his eyes in New York tenement
as winter snow falls,
rolls over
dreams again.

 —Anonymous Photo

BALTIMORE, APRIL 29, 2015
   
Inside Camden Yards
when the Orioles played the White Sox
on this idyllic spring afternoon,
the wail of sirens accompanied pre-game music
that echoed across 46,000 empty seats,
a few loyal followers hung banners, looked from nearby balconies,
gathered outside locked gates,
stood to watch through a wrought iron fence,
while residents just blocks away swept up streets and stores
after days of riots, protest marches, curfew,
despair and frustration.
No vendors sold beer, hot dogs, or peanuts,
no lines snaked toward restrooms,
no hawkers roamed the aisles with cotton candy,
lemonade, or ice cream;
on the field, the players seemed smaller,
like Little League kids without even parents in the bleachers,
surprised to hear their own voices
carry across the outfield to call for a catch
or encourage each other,
at least one player tossing a ball into the stands
to invisible spectators
where it rattled around like a huge pinball machine.
Through all nine innings,
the one constant sound was the sharp slap
of the ball into the catcher’s mitt,
a loud whack we rarely hear during a regular game,
a sound like a club hitting flesh,
yet rhythmic and strong
like the heartbeat of a city
as it slowly catches its breath

______________________

CONFESSION TO ANNE FRANK
    
I am your Judas,
your traitor,
the betrayer of your secrets,
but I am not an anti-Semite.
What I did has nothing to do
with your yellow star, Torah,
or denial of The Divine;
what I did came from selfish fear
of the same Gestapo agents
who terrorized your dreams,
the ones who would accuse me
of complicity,
arrest me with the other employees,
send us all with you to Westerbork
if I didn’t write that anonymous note,
expose your location.
Now, you haunt my dreams,
starved, skeletal, bald,
weak and broken,
a tattooed number on your arm,
as you haul rocks, dig rolls of sod.
The world will remember your strength
and courage,
while my identity remains forever hidden,
but I want you to know this:
I speak your name on the third day
of every September,
the day you boarded the very last transport
headed to Auschwitz,
I speak your name, and for you,
I say Kaddish.

 Landscape with the Fall of Icarus

Today’s LittleNip:

ON LANDSCAPE WITH THE FALL OF ICARUS
         (painting usually attributed to Pieter Bruegel) 

—Nancy Haskett

Charleston, Aurora, Columbine,
Newtown, Virginia Tech,
Paris, San Bernardino—
places that roll off our tongues too easily,
a litany of violence become commonplace;
shock worn off, once riveted to news broadcasts,
we pay less attention now
or don’t look at all,
like the plowman and shepherd in the painting,
absorbed in the routine of their daily lives,
too preoccupied to notice the tragedy,
even as Icarus falls from the sky
in the blue-green waters

________________________

Our thanks to Modesto’s Nancy Haskett for today’s fine poems and pix! For more about the Landscape painting, see www.artinsociety.com/bruegels-icarus-and-the-perils-of-flight.html/.

This morning at 9:30am, Cal. Lawyers for the Arts present a workshop at CLARA studios on N St. in Sacramento on increasing donations to your group. Then this evening at 6:30pm, The Good Earth Movement in Placerville presents Sacramento poet Grace Loescher plus open mic. And Barbara West will be reading tonight (plus open mic) at The Avid Reader in Davis, 8pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under the green column at the right) for info about these and other upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more may be added at the last minute.

—Medusa

 Word Cloud (Anonymous)

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