Where the air is rarefied
you will catch me peeking
holding my breath lest
I give myself away, again
and I be your manikin.

The table holds the tokens of your love;
a card, a present.  Simple things, and still
I don't know how you keep on finding time

to work, to care for parents, and yet have time
for showing me the warm, unbounded love
that strikes me silent, wonder-filled and still.

The hours you're gone, the house is quiet, still;
my heart the ticking watch in measured time.
I'm thirsting for a droplet of your love;

love concentrated by the still of time.

Basket of resource books and herbs is in the car.
2. Basket of sewing tools and knitting needles is packed with an item or two to stitch.
3. One cast iron *** is ready to go. Two more in the process of burning off and seasoning.
4. Linen caps and kerchiefs are starched. Clothes are laid out.
5. Pack basket is full of pottery and utensils. Need to ask the woodworker if he will make me a lid and dasher for the butrer churn.
6. Copper kettle is filled with a bag of seasoned walnuts and two tin skilkets.
7. Still working on ingredients for the larder. Storing them in period appropriate containers is a puzzle.
8. Spinning wheel is excited for the new adventure. She said bring plenty of roving.

If I could draw it -
but I was never an artist.
What a picture that would be -
my family.

And maybe if I could trace the lines
I could better understand
how I came to be--me.

But I can't separate the smells
and sounds
and touch of it,
pencils can only go so far.

And there are the scenes
that I can only imagine.
The ones that happened
decades before me.
I see my grandpa's smiling face.
I don't remember him
as a brawling drunk
terrorizing his family
after world war II.

Granny smelled like powder
and liked men
though she would never admit it.
She talked a lot
but I don't remember ever
hearing any thing worthwhile.

The one I can't name.
He hurt me in the dark.

Mom Glass, the bootlegger,
who took her grandaughters
on Sunday trips up the mountain
to buy moonshine.
She wore red underdrawers
and she didn't care who knew.

Mammaw, who gave me words.
Who didn't know I was a refugee
but always welcomed me warmly.
She taught me the beauty
of being earthy.
No prim or proper uppity
girls fishin in the creek.
That one brought tears.
I miss her smile.

There are so many faces.

Voices.

Memories.

All contributed something
to the poem
I haven't written yet.

Dear Emily,

You may know me.
Sometimes when poets read my words,
they call me that other Emily.
You were the first.
I found you when I was a little girl.
My grandmother gave me a book.
And there you were.
I lost myself in your words so often
that I started to remember them.
I took you with me wherever I went
and when I was lonely in a crowd
there you were, my lovely companion.
They said you had trouble
learning to tell time, and so did I.
My hair is chestnut, too--
with a little gray showing here and there.
My eyes are brown.
I don't have a white dress, though.
I have a gray sheer
with white window pane pattern.
I wish our gardens connected
sometime
so that we could meet at the fence
and share receipts.
You might like my blackberry cake.
A cup of tea. A glass of sherry.
I wonder if you knew that you were
extraordinary.
Your gifts not just poetry.
You were a sentient person
surrounded by the deaf and blind.
You saw more.
Heard more
than your neighbors.
I just wanted to say that I understand.
We are alike in many ways.

Your most obed. servant,

Emily

And it was at that age...Poetry arrived
in search of me. I don't know, I don't know where
it came from, from winter or a river.
I don't know how or when,
no, they were not voices, they were not
words, nor silence,
but from a street I was summoned,
from the branches of night,
abruptly from the others,
among violent fires
or returning alone,
there I was without a face
and it touched me.

I did not know what to say, my mouth
had no way
with names
my eyes were blind,
and something started in my soul,
fever or forgotten wings,
and I made my own way,
deciphering
that fire
and I wrote the first faint line,
faint, without substance, pure
nonsense,
pure wisdom
of someone who knows nothing,
and suddenly I saw
the heavens
unfastened
and open,
planets,
palpitating planations,
shadow perforated,
riddled
with arrows, fire and flowers,
the winding night, the universe.

And I, infinitesmal being,
drunk with the great starry
void,
likeness, image of
mystery,
I felt myself a pure part
of the abyss,
I wheeled with the stars,
my heart broke free on the open sky.