I had a prentice, once. She came across the river, bright belief like starshine, sharp. I taught her names; to listen, still; how words quick-hum inside the oak, how they can build and howl like lightning splits the sky, and spill. We strung them fine on heart-string rope to make a blackbird song. She’s gone. To have her back! but autumn spells and heartsease hold her now.
A little blank verse for the Yeah Write May poetry slam.
All that long-lighted day I watched her
rope-spinning, flinging it bridge-ways
across the clear river, bee-hum loud
in the glade. Rain held off and held off
as it did in such a summer (a wizard’s trick
or maybe of the crone herself). A girl gathering
words like blackberries, fingers mouth juice-
stained and she never saw me in her headlong
desire but oh, I would have told her heartsease
is not worth the price. For a word I would have
told her an eased heart is nothing, songless.
But she came by belief and all that light-
long day I watched her, aching, for it was
only a step to the crone’s hut and now
she’ll never find her way back.
Here’s heartsease, and you give me
your desire. I keep it in blue jars,
well-sealed. Just one pinch warms
me through a year of winter windy
nights, good as a peat-fire or cat-purr.
I’ll take the rope, too, strongly spun
of heart-strings and paper. Once
you leave the forest you’ll not need
it again, and ’twill serve me well
as a clothesline. Those shriveled words
in your bucket? Keep them.
It was only a step into the forest
to the river running fast and clear
and I knew that summer trick
of spinning strong rope
from paper and heart-strings
twirling it high and far
to snag lightning-split oak
where wizard-words swarmed
like bees, spilled like blackberries
to fill mouth, pockets, buckets
It was only a step from the forest
to where the crone sold heartsease
for desire, a mere bucketful of words
and a spinning strong rope
Born in winter it follows: pale
eyes, white thighs, welcoming
ice in your blueshadow heart
On this knife-shard we bloom
roses on the breast of the snow
The white stag founders and
in thin trees blacksilent
owls watch hunters verge-lost
Your secret cottager spins jewels
into grayrock, acres of gold
into straw
More than nineteen autumns
have passed since I fell in love
with Ireland, with words—
brilliant creatures lyrical
mysterious, beautiful
I don’t know if I can claim
that I’d never before desired
a bee-loud glade; nor can I blame
you entirely for my choice
and my pride to stitch
and unstitch these lines
rather than scrub kitchens
break stones
(Soul, clap your hands and sing
to find again these phrases, to hear
with older ears the cadence
of the dim, green isle
Heart, skim back the years to see
a pulsing belief in faeryland, star-laden
seas and terrible beauty…)
I will go soon to Drumcliff churchyard
by the road, an ancient cross
there I will gaze and pray that I know
the song of linnet’s wings
peace dropping slow
I don’t know how better to pay my respects than to steal favorite lines from his works—“The Lake Isle of Innisfree,” “The Man Who Dreamed of Faeryland,” “Adam’s Curse,” “The Wild Swans at Coole,” “Easter 1916,” “Sailing to Byzantium,” ”Under Ben Bulben”
I’ve come to love the silence. (You will come
to love it too.) Slip into the forest, hush,
and listen, away from the brook’s mindless
chatter. The world is loud, your thoughts
are loud; your love, your pain, your dreams
are loud. Put them aside and listen. Come
deeper in, all moth-wings and moon-dark
and I shall not speak, but hold you. This tight-
strung thrumming below blood-beat (feel
it) is your food and clothing and shelter. Sink
and be still, feel this earth-skin turning
with arms of leaves to enfold you. Hush
and hear the spider-silk weaving
(listen to love it too).
It is a clean place in the low countries,
all gleam, gold and azure between framing
cliffs, water-smooth reflection of white
town walls, sea-blue church spires, billow
clouds and distant in-sailing fleet.
What price, this peace?
What price, these burghers trotting
staid on horseback, wimpled wife
with her back to the half-door?
What price, the wide-open gates
and stream of people wending
curving path to crowning castle?
On the near green hill is violence.
It is a lonely scene, above the town,
screened from worthy citizens’ view.
If they looked up, they might catch
a glint of sun on armor or downstabbed
spear. They don’t look up.
The dragon is also blue and gold,
another part of the landscape.
Did he once come looming, blocking
the sun or kindling in the last glory
of sunset? Did they deliberate long,
in cliff-top towers, on the appropriate
sacrifice?
The princess prays but does not look
afraid. The knight dispassionately
does his duty, only his streaming
crimson sleeves a hint of where
this will end.
It is a clean town on the sea,
and for this the dragon must die.
The idyllic day continues unruffled,
like the water.
Inspired by We Drink Because We’re Poets: Write about a favorite painting. I was looking at Rogier van der Weyden’s Saint George and the Dragon, painted 1432-1435. You can see it and learn more at the U.S. National Gallery of Art’s website.
Miss Havisham, dear Ophelia, let us flee
this dark house, the cruelty of misplaced
desire, the paneling of which is suitable
only for our coffins. Let us find another wood,
a brighter home of our own choosing, lush
with fern, moss-hushed, honeysuckle glinting,
scenting the sunlight and the hill-born(e)
breeze. Let us step from the shade into glade
of pink foxglove, listen for rocks’ water-song
and silence of trees.
There is no revenge in pity,
no sympathy in surrender, so cast off your wrecked
dresses, your sodden tresses; care not about full-
filling hours. We will study butterfly wings, speech
of birds. We will deck ourselves with wild roses—
or toss them at the b(r)ook.
To stand in this place is not to feel
the weight of history, but the treasure
of its humanity. Go on a mist-damp day
in early spring; climb through the woods
solitary, roofed and walled and floored in green.
The gate, wood-massive and iron-barred,
stands open. Pass through it and become
part of the place’s past. It is not whole,
but propped up, unreconstructed. The wind
scours and wears the stone but the footprint
is still there; listen for the echo, trace it.
Pace the vast space of the bustling kitchens
and see the girl trudge with sloshing bucket
from the well. Climb higher on centuries-worn
steps to the wall. The soldier huddles in his cloak,
blows on numb fingers. Look over the parapet,
see the line of carts and carters below, groaning,
hauling grain and meat and fuel and fodder.
Look up, to the tower. The lord in his solar
gazes across the valley, self-satisfied or afraid;
his pale daughter frowns at her needlework.
Now close your eyes and hold this, glowing,
as if you’ve drunk the magic draught
from a light-filled cup. Soon you must return
to your workaday world, but here in this space
you are someone and somewhen else, wonder-full.
The birds sing in the nearing forest, the wind
caresses the stone, the tattered flag
flaps, the fortress stands empty and alone…
until you come again.
Graceful Press Poetry 