l-a-rice - Hello Poetry

In my ancestral land - A land, you say, of no trees But wind, and more wind - You sleep and wake before me Here, I sink into smooth cushions And someone else’s words And a purpled sky That soothes the longing in me Until I remember that it is You I want to sink into, You I want to hear, only you I want to soothe me.

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Oct 26, 2010

Oct 26, 2010 at 9:59 AM UTC

l-a-rice

While You Were in Scotland

In my ancestral land - A land, you say, of no trees But wind, and more wind - You sleep and wake before me Here, I sink into smooth cushions And someone else’s words And a purpled sky That soothes the longing in me Until I remember that it is You I want to sink into, You I want to hear, only you I want to soothe me.

12

(not While You Were in Ireland) For you, He Who Doesn’t Like Poetry, Here’s a short one That I vow I will not Read aloud. You are my Inward breath, The one I take At the crest of every Steep hill, Ready to descend. You are my Exhalation, The one I release When Elliott’s voice Reminds me Of another tenuous life. You aren’t only there Where you are, But you are here Where I am, Breathing.

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Oct 26, 2010

Oct 26, 2010 at 9:56 AM UTC

l-a-rice

A New Title

(not While You Were in Ireland) For you, He Who Doesn’t Like Poetry, Here’s a short one That I vow I will not Read aloud. You are my Inward breath, The one I take At the crest of every Steep hill, Ready to descend. You are my Exhalation, The one I release When Elliott’s voice Reminds me Of another tenuous life. You aren’t only there Where you are, But you are here Where I am, Breathing.

23

Somewhere I have a photograph of you: three, fat and happy at Maryann’s table and spreading your pudding dessert onto the tablecloth, the messy artist caught in the moment of creation. I want to hold that picture and breathe in again your proud fingers suspended over the table, your eyes already knowing what pleasure you will bring to us, your laugh sounding silently in the fixed frame. I need to see you there, held in the blues and browns and reds and innocently unaware that one faulty piece of your heart would weaken and nearly give up when you were fifteen and still laughing.

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Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 4:00 PM UTC

l-a-rice

For Michael

Somewhere I have a photograph of you: three, fat and happy at Maryann’s table and spreading your pudding dessert onto the tablecloth, the messy artist caught in the moment of creation. I want to hold that picture and breathe in again your proud fingers suspended over the table, your eyes already knowing what pleasure you will bring to us, your laugh sounding silently in the fixed frame. I need to see you there, held in the blues and browns and reds and innocently unaware that one faulty piece of your heart would weaken and nearly give up when you were fifteen and still laughing.

18

To tell any story of you I should begin with stone – Marbles, granites, slates – in slabs and blocks so large They surrounded the family plant like cold-faced Soldiers, armed not to keep out, but to keep safe The secret knowledge: how to turn function to art, How to harvest beauty from earth’s dark home. We could count on you to be part of our home. After school days and weekends of shaping stone You appeared at our table, wearing your appetite large And wooing my sister until our brother’s blank face (Your best friend’s cold face) blinked there was no safe Way to have them both. Somehow, for you, the art Was in the trying. At work, you created a new art Cutting and carving miniature relief scenes – of home And history and Greek goddesses in soft marble stone Streaked pink and black – with callused hands larger Than the finished pieces. My sister lowered her face In refusal of that first gift. Believing you were too safe, She married someone else. You married, to be safe, Someone who didn’t care to understand the delicate art Of your labor. Soon, some chasm reached your home, Splitting you in silence until you no longer were stone But shards and pieces scattered at the bottom of a large Abyss, unwhole. Your grief too hard for you to face, You led your wife along a trail up to a rocky west face Above a summer pool. Here, you thought, you were safe To perfect an absolute stillness between you, a terrible art, And somehow avenge the jagged cleavage in your home. You struggled (the papers would later report) until stones Slipped, hands unclasped, the space between grew large. Like a pebble thrown, your wife’s body created no large Ripples until shallow breath returned and she surfaced Flailing, waving one unbroken arm to show she was safe. But it was too late for you, whose new attempts at art Had once again failed, and so you turned to go home To become immovable, unreachable, a dumb stone. At home, you recorded failures and defeats you faced In large hurried script, writing to set forever in stone One final success: a safe shot to the head, your newest art.

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Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:59 PM UTC

l-a-rice

What You Quarried

To tell any story of you I should begin with stone – Marbles, granites, slates – in slabs and blocks so large They surrounded the family plant like cold-faced Soldiers, armed not to keep out, but to keep safe The secret knowledge: how to turn function to art, How to harvest beauty from earth’s dark home. We could count on you to be part of our home. After school days and weekends of shaping stone You appeared at our table, wearing your appetite large And wooing my sister until our brother’s blank face (Your best friend’s cold face) blinked there was no safe Way to have them both. Somehow, for you, the art Was in the trying. At work, you created a new art Cutting and carving miniature relief scenes – of home And history and Greek goddesses in soft marble stone Streaked pink and black – with callused hands larger Than the finished pieces. My sister lowered her face In refusal of that first gift. Believing you were too safe, She married someone else. You married, to be safe, Someone who didn’t care to understand the delicate art Of your labor. Soon, some chasm reached your home, Splitting you in silence until you no longer were stone But shards and pieces scattered at the bottom of a large Abyss, unwhole. Your grief too hard for you to face, You led your wife along a trail up to a rocky west face Above a summer pool. Here, you thought, you were safe To perfect an absolute stillness between you, a terrible art, And somehow avenge the jagged cleavage in your home. You struggled (the papers would later report) until stones Slipped, hands unclasped, the space between grew large. Like a pebble thrown, your wife’s body created no large Ripples until shallow breath returned and she surfaced Flailing, waving one unbroken arm to show she was safe. But it was too late for you, whose new attempts at art Had once again failed, and so you turned to go home To become immovable, unreachable, a dumb stone. At home, you recorded failures and defeats you faced In large hurried script, writing to set forever in stone One final success: a safe shot to the head, your newest art.

39

Perhaps they mean to stand side by side In 1941. Friends forever one whispers And ever comes the unspoken reply, a rote Lesson for two who will bear each other Up through disease, five children (The last two a party’s legacy), Two divorces, betrayal and ***** Too many deaths. Perhaps they mean to Stand together nearly sixty years later In a kitchen too small to hold their lives And whisper those words again.

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Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:58 PM UTC

l-a-rice

Class Photograph, Miss Chick’s School, Lancaster, Massachusetts

Perhaps they mean to stand side by side In 1941. Friends forever one whispers And ever comes the unspoken reply, a rote Lesson for two who will bear each other Up through disease, five children (The last two a party’s legacy), Two divorces, betrayal and ***** Too many deaths. Perhaps they mean to Stand together nearly sixty years later In a kitchen too small to hold their lives And whisper those words again.

11

After I give my leg to cancer or break my back in a crash or lose my faithful husband you will arrive hoping to find another albatross to wear like jewelry so the neighbors know your burden *through this very difficult time* but I will not let you in for all the days I wasn’t a bright scarf about your head or some other beautiful thing you were blessed with.

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Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:57 PM UTC

l-a-rice

Too Late

After I give my leg to cancer or break my back in a crash or lose my faithful husband you will arrive hoping to find another albatross to wear like jewelry so the neighbors know your burden *through this very difficult time* but I will not let you in for all the days I wasn’t a bright scarf about your head or some other beautiful thing you were blessed with.

12

For Paul He works a solid post of steel between straight teeth and grinds against enamel. Songs of ruthless youth careen in flats and sharps off swollen tongue and crowd the winter air. I see him coming off the half-pipe hard: a clench of sinew floating on the edge. He drops, one arm outstretched to catch the earth. the other winging wildly skyward as his songs become the splintered echoing of fractured branches under heavy snow.

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Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:56 PM UTC

l-a-rice

Boarder in January

For Paul He works a solid post of steel between straight teeth and grinds against enamel. Songs of ruthless youth careen in flats and sharps off swollen tongue and crowd the winter air. I see him coming off the half-pipe hard: a clench of sinew floating on the edge. He drops, one arm outstretched to catch the earth. the other winging wildly skyward as his songs become the splintered echoing of fractured branches under heavy snow.

11

In the early morning And even later, still, The lake’s surface is Full, an inverted Seamless sky. It is easy to rest here, To feel no pull to move Or to act. Instead, I watch purple martins Swoop, dip, nearly collide. Nearby, in a half-completed Project, you stop and look to me, Lifting your hand In reverence to this new pull Neither of us understands. Weeks later, I will remember This day as a prayer, A single offering: Windless sky on water, Winged salutations, your eyes.

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Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:54 PM UTC

l-a-rice

Anti-gravity

In the early morning And even later, still, The lake’s surface is Full, an inverted Seamless sky. It is easy to rest here, To feel no pull to move Or to act. Instead, I watch purple martins Swoop, dip, nearly collide. Nearby, in a half-completed Project, you stop and look to me, Lifting your hand In reverence to this new pull Neither of us understands. Weeks later, I will remember This day as a prayer, A single offering: Windless sky on water, Winged salutations, your eyes.

20

In 1973, My father used a favorite shucking knife, Its short blade loose in the wooden shaft, To pry open rocklike oysters. He passed them to us, his heirs To the iced tea spoons, the fondue *** The escargot shells, the silver martini shaker, And we would first check them for pearls And then hold them, like religion, Above our mouths, Tip our heads back, And let them slide over our tongues. Yesterday, at Little Pond, As March thawed the glassthin ice, I startled at the cracking, Welcomed the blade, sang the amen.

0

Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:53 PM UTC

l-a-rice

Bivalve

In 1973, My father used a favorite shucking knife, Its short blade loose in the wooden shaft, To pry open rocklike oysters. He passed them to us, his heirs To the iced tea spoons, the fondue *** The escargot shells, the silver martini shaker, And we would first check them for pearls And then hold them, like religion, Above our mouths, Tip our heads back, And let them slide over our tongues. Yesterday, at Little Pond, As March thawed the glassthin ice, I startled at the cracking, Welcomed the blade, sang the amen.

16

There is a rhythm between us: Sometimes a quiet rise and fall Of a tide unseen, unheard A coupling of river and shore, Sometimes the glacial beat Of a spring thaw pounding through Miles and years, demanding notice. Yesterday I felt fortune crest in me And drew it into safe still frames (Of sturdy forest cairns, Your voice in whispers and song, Sunlight, word games, chocolate, My hand on your back) One day, abundant, spilling over.

0

Aug 18, 2010

Aug 18, 2010 at 3:51 PM UTC

l-a-rice

The Day Entire

There is a rhythm between us: Sometimes a quiet rise and fall Of a tide unseen, unheard A coupling of river and shore, Sometimes the glacial beat Of a spring thaw pounding through Miles and years, demanding notice. Yesterday I felt fortune crest in me And drew it into safe still frames (Of sturdy forest cairns, Your voice in whispers and song, Sunlight, word games, chocolate, My hand on your back) One day, abundant, spilling over.

14