SLEEPLESS
do the dark now
do the dark
the way you do it
squeeze in the music
from the next apartment
slip the light under the door
fade the carpeted footsteps
that go by in the hallway
free the creakings in the wall
outside
the puddles shine with rain
the streetlamp studies them
car-doors slam closed
and voices say goodbye
the moving hours are the same
do the dark now
make it right
the moon is bright
do the dark now
say goodnight
(first pub. in Wings, 1995)
__________________
TALKING
She hides under her low voice
for his deafness,
says it’s her throat
that keeps her words inaudible . . .
so full of illness.
She talks all the time,
he asking what she says
which she repeats for him
just as low.
(first pub in Galley Sail Review, 1988)
___________________
OF MY EFFORT
It was a dream
the way I moved against myself
multi-imaged
and tired of my effort.
.
She turned and watched
where I struggled
from so far away.
Her hair hung in ropes.
.
I was in the body of the child.
My hands pressed my air.
My voices jarred my silence and
sound.
There was no safe parent around.
.
She had thoughts
like webs
and I walked through them
into her secrets.
HOME ALONG THE LEAVES
Home along the leaves that have fallen from her gold tree. She smiles goodbye and hello with the same face. She waits in the same old window for your wave. She remembers everything about you. You are returning from her one more time. She will embrace you and weep. Her eloquent tree will watch through the window and twirl its leaves in celebration; your connection to the tree’s birds will be the beginning of conversation. The sunlight will cut its sharp path along the definitive branches. All will be told in the voices of women who know what to say to each other. Her gold tree will sing in the air with its brightness and shed more leaves. “These are its tears,” you will offer, and she will know what you mean and once more kiss you goodbye.
_______________________
MOTHER CALLS ME WITH HER DYING
Mother says she is dreaming that she is dying and just wanted to warn me, prepare me for the phone call that would come.
I am calm, remove myself from responding. I don’t want to hear this. Mother’s voice is turned down low. I can barely hear her.
She says she has to be careful, that they listen at the Nurse’s Station, but she is dying in her sleep and she wanted me to know—wanted to hear my voice—hundreds of miles between us, and time itself three hours away.
Now, I don’t want you to grieve, she tells me in her old no-nonsense voice; and though I try to open my mouth to answer, she keeps on talking.
I cannot interrupt her, though she dwindles off again. Wake up! I want to say—but don’t know what that would mean—if she is really dying—in her sleep—in her mind—in my imagination.
_______________________
FROM A LOST SUMMER DAY
Quick Impressions (After O’Hara).
I sink back into tall green grasses.
A soft breeze bends the grasses over me.
Sky-clouds form,
and reform. Voices call my name—
my name that I do not want to hear.
I will not remember my name.
I am in my dreaming.
Awake. Floating in the sea of grasses,
I, and the motioning green shadows,
borne upon the width of forever.
I will never come out.
I am green grass and green shadow.
Even the sky makes room for me—
all energy—one wide presence
without form—
everything alive in my thinking.
A child wants to be alone with child-self.
No voice. No calling.
______________________
Today's LittleNip:
The words conspire
in a tender voice—
what will they mean
with their secret meaning,
foreign to the din of language?
They soothe; they are there
for the forgiving—
they have silence,
which is desirable.
Silence is their secret.
______________________
—Medusa, with thanks to Joyce Odam for today's poems and pix! Time for a new Seed of the Week: Those Infernal Machines. Send your musings about the same to kathykieth@hotmail.com
