What Beauty is For

Leading Lines

—Poems and Photos by Maria Rosales, Paradise, CA

DESERT ECHOES                              

This desert room holds little of me—
Most objects speak of your history, not mine.
Do I have a history, now that you took my name?

I search for objects that remained through many lives and loves.
There are only two—my totems.
My father’s mandolin, and the beads from an afghan wedding dress.

The mandolin wails only in memory,
the curve of its belly is its own pregnant coffin.
My father’s silken tenor locked now in other wood.

The dress found me as I sailed
past an Afghan merchant’s trendy barrow
Portobello Road, 1976.
Patched with velvet, laden with hopeful beads.

I wore it while my son swam in my belly. Dreamed
of caravans,
bearing figs,
following stars.

I took it to the tropics.  Its hand-woven heaviness doomed it to exile
in a musty humid closet.  It died.  The beads remain.
Some farmer’s daughter a hundred years ago
kept her dowry to her chest, folded in the beaded pockets.
The dress billowed behind her in the vermillion desert wind.
She haunted my pregnancy, wailed for her dowry’s return,
an Afghan banshee.  These many years, I still hear her keening
in the back doors of my mind, in the quiet places I nurture
outside of our story.

This desert room holds little of me. 

(prev. pub. in Poettalk, June, 2005)    

 Shirley Looking Down a Stairwell

—Photo by Roy DeCarava

SHIRLEY LOOKING DOWN A STAIRWELL
After the photograph by Roy DeCarava
 
What do we know about Shirley?
She is standing at the top of a stairwell
She is leaning on the banister
in such a way that we know,
because of the way she is trusting the rail,
leaning her most intimate parts against it,
that she lives here.  That she has leaned
against this simple wood many times before,
and knows it will hold her without complaint.

What do we know about Shirley?
Her back is straight, her arms lean,
and we sense the muscled legs.
Beneath the simple cotton dress
something waiting, tensed for the fight.
She leans against her worries
and bears them up these stairs
every day without complaint.

What do we know about Shirley?
We know she had a child.
She rests her rounded belly on the rail.
An emptied womb still holds
the shape of fruit.

What do we know about Shirley?
This is where she lives.
Worry lives with her.
She bids farewell to her boy child
every time he descends the stair.
 
              
(prev. pub. in The Dirty Napkin, June 2009)  

  Table Mountain Tree

 
THE OWL LIVES HERE

High in the palm
next to the oleander
in the garden of the yellow house,
there’s no sign of the silent hunter.
But at the base of the tree
lie oval calling cards
the color and consistency of tar.

I have taken one apart,
—I know, it’s unsanitary
picking through owl vomit—
but I slice through the sticky black egg
to reveal a miniature helmet
with elongated incisors intact.

I give the skull to a child,
suggest this pocket of bone held
gopher thoughts
which are not unlike ours.
Which way shall I turn?
Where’s my mate?
What’s that shadow?

We imagine gopher life
under the fallow field,
below carcasses of leaf, feather and fur,
below hawk of day and owl of night,
tunnels teaming with gopher obsessions.

I explain that gopher
becomes part of the owl,
joins the catechism of its DNA.

Perhaps, I say, now the owl may dream
of life underground?

Or maybe, she says
the gopher
dreamed of flying. 

 At San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

TIMELINE LEADING UP TO THE SOUND
OF BOOTS ON THE STAIRCASE

She is looking for an answer
in the rising
and falling
of a tiny chest.

Five weeks since the riots.
One month since the tanks cracked
the cobblestones in the market square.

Five days since the water stopped.
Three days since she slept.

Four days since her daughter left to steal milk.
Eight hours since the baby took the last of the canned.

Five hours since he refused her dry breast.
Four hours since he wet his diaper.
One hour since he cried.

Twenty minutes since the last explosion.
Three minutes since the last siren.
Thirty seconds since the bullhorn ordered them out.

 Selfie at SFMOMA

WHAT BEAUTY IS FOR

And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life? 

                  —Mary Oliver

We forget.  We forget.
As we step into the newborn fragile day,
one day closer to the final unfinished day,
She offers her hand.

As we step into the brand new day
As eager as sparrows, as afraid of shadows overhead,
Beauty waits for us to take her hand,
begin again with eyes full of wonder.

As eager as sparrows, and as afraid of shadows
which lengthen as the sun rises,
we’ll begin again.  Full of wonder
full of fear.  Shadows hunt the light

even as the sun rises.
Everything has its anti-self, and we know ourselves too well.
Full of fear, we are shadows hunting light.
Sometimes we must be reminded just to breathe.

Everything has its anti-self, and we know ourselves
to be weak, and there’s that other hunger for the dark.
Sometimes we must be reminded just to breathe
but Beauty waits.  She is accustomed to the wait.

We’re weak, and there’s that other hunger,
For the dark is everywhere.
She waits, she is accustomed.
              Until our eyes open, and we remember, though
              sometimes we simply cannot breathe, 

              for all the tragic splendor of the day,
what beauty is for. 

 Crowd Observing Meditation Pool, SFMOMA

WHAT I LEARNED FROM MY MOTHER
               

Singing makes everything hurt less.

Laughing works well too, and if you need an easy target

use yourself.   It does not matter,

when you have holes in your shoes,

whether your socks match,

as long as they are thick socks.

If you have a lot of kids and a lot of raggedy clothing,

tie the rags to their feet and send them skating around the room.

A cup of tea does you good,

and the priest is quiet at least while he sips.

If you have no money for the bus

wear lipstick and smile.

If you pass the money lender’s house before payday

don’t look at the curtains

and after you are ‘round the corner, bless yourself.

If the bank thinks you have a daughter in America who sends you money

they may lend you some

and if you die with the loan unpaid, you win.

Don’t forget you are descended from Vikings—

they were immigrants too, and they did all right.

Don’t trust men, trust your power over them.

Talk to yourself if you want to.

You won’t get bored with the conversation.

If you are alone, and talking to yourself, include the marmalade.

Don’t hold on to sentimental paper memories

especially when we’re short on coal.

On cold winter evenings, it’s not a sin

to put a little brandy in your tea.

And if you’re still cold, sing. 

 Bidwell Park Pool

________________________

Today's LittleNip:

Summer ends, and Autumn comes, and he who would have it otherwise would have high tide always and a full moon every night.

—Hal Borland

___________________

                                                              
Our thanks to Maria Rosales today for her fine poems and photos! Maria was born in London and lived in Europe, North Africa, Canada, and Hawaii before settling in California. She has been writing poetry and short stories all her life. Her poems have appeared in Meridian Anthology,  Byline, Poetry Depth Quarterly, Poetalk, the Nashville Newsletter, The Dirty Napkin Online Magazine, The Contra Costa Times and several San Francisco Bay Area anthologies. Her book, Time to Fly, was published with Small Poetry Press. She has received many awards from the Ina Coolbrith Circle, Artists Embassy International, and contests sponsored by Benicia Historical Museum, City of Pleasanton and Livermore Arts. Maria hosted the successful PrimoPoets series for several years, and has served on the Board of Directors for the Ina Coolbrith Circle since 2007. She has featured at poetry readings throughout the Bay Area and in Yosemite and Lincoln, and has presented collaborative dance/poetry productions with Moving Arts Dance at the Dancing Poetry Festival in San Francisco.

Welcome to the Kitchen, Maria, and don’t be a stranger!

By the way, Maria has been active in the Bay Area poetry community for many years, and I’m sure she shares our concerns about our friends in the Santa Rosa fire areas. Watch Facebook and other social media for news about their safety.

—Medusa

Maria Rosales

Celebrate Poetry!
And don’t forget that Poetry Off-the-Shelves meets 

in Placerville at the El Dorado County Library tonight 

from 5-7pm. Scroll down to the blue column (under 

the green column at the right) for info about this and other 

upcoming poetry events in our area—and note that more 

may be added at the last minute. While you’re over there 

in the blue box, check out the info for this weekend’s 

10th Annual Davis Jazz and Beat Festival, especially the

Jack Kerouac Poetry Prize Performances on Friday night. 

Poems are due tomorrow (Thursday), Oct. 12, at noon, to 

Dr. Andy Jones at jackkerouaccontest@gmail.com/. 

Cash prizes! Shazam! 





 

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