Well, Penni, in my life the really predictable markers are margin calls and birthdays, and I have both tomorrow!! Boy, IPIC never fails to disappoint, huh? All I really want to do on my birthday is relax, eat fresh strawberries, take a walk at the beach and listen to music.
I have been reading a lot of poetry about time passing, illness, aging and dying recently, determined to find out what the secret of it all is, and be much readier for the upcoming Big 50 than I am for this one knocking on its door. Anyway, these poems are all by Angela Greene from Northern Ireland.
Stirring
Pots are muttering on the lowest heat
in the kitchen. Stony-face, on the mat
in front of the stove, she sits, in pigtails,
torn blue jeans, stained runners, clutching
a fat black cat. Her pale cheek is pressed
on his furred cheek; his sleek paw
is curved to her rigid shoulder; his
purr is stilled sensing this fierce,
first struggle. I work around them.
It was here she built her leaning towers,
acted princess to the legendary frog;
would soar weightless, drifting for hours
within her very own wonderland.
She used to throw her anguish onto my neck,
drained each scalding hurt into my ear.
For this brittle world she is entering she chooses
an animal's embrace, a stove's warmth
and what magic adheres to an old mat.
* * *
For This Day
Today her soft room gleams behind
windows pushed wide
on to a sky that is stretched
to the limit of its blue;
along the hedge bob sun-struck daffodils
excited by each other's gold.
She hugs this joy warily--a fragile thing,
or unmeant gift, which might be snatched away.
Downstairs, routine kitchen sounds
are roots of the ordinary day
and, in pubescent chaos,
her children shave the springy grass
to within an inch of its newfound life.
From high delicate branches a blackbird
splits the ether with its song.
The air is linen-fresh.
All round her this brute life thrusts:
its hormones, heartbeats, the swell
of tender buds dares her
to forget the unriddable: the quick
cold hands, cold words
dropped in those textbook rooms; clever
death's hungry probe
down the blood to where she is now,
contained in an unsweet discipline . . .
Know each blossoming to be the emblem
of survival and the reprieve
alive in that doctor's candid eyes
and for this day
unclinch.
Let go this pain.
Blink at its wet-winged giddy flight.
* * *
A Young Woman With a Child on Each Hand
A young woman with a child on each hand
turns at the zebra crossing
to join two more young women,
one pregnant, one tilting a pram.
She is vital, almost beautiful.
Her sons are sturdy and neat.
She walks into the life I am leaving.
When she greets her friends, I am aware
mothercraft has blinded her, till anxiety
thins her voice. I want to call out,
that for her, now is filled
with simple certainties--a spilled cup,
a rowdy room, a bed-time story. But
as she moves down the street, I can
only guess the weight
of her sacrifice, her tenderness
as her hands keep emptying, emptying . . .
* * *
Letting Go
The false security
of the simple
and the ordinary.
I left the latch, push
take several steps
acorss the bright linoleum
toward the dresser shouting,
'Kids, kids, I can hardly hear my ears,'
when I realise I am in a dream.
the fool in me
not wanting to accept change.
In that moment I had my children
as I still want them to be. Kilts
and knee-socks, short pants
and t-shirts. The soft splash
as milk
falls from the tray of the high chair.
I'm reaching back to them
from chat through chores
to play. What I didn't know then . . .
That rowdy kitchen was a piece
of cake. I ruled the roost.
Now these young men and women
sprawl over so much space
they scare me. The world's
the oyster their minds
prise wide. They talk
inches above my head. Their
laughter and their language leap
beyond me. Now
I am forced to look at time
in another way. Not
as so many grains of sand
flowing from glass belly
to glass belly, but how,
through the persistent gnawing
of years, I've weathered
as I watch them grow. And
how at last, as I let go
and slip behind them, I ease
my bones into the universe.
* * *
Sitting on a Rock in Letterfrack
Alone on the rock
beside the fuchsia bush,
surrounded by stones
and mossy things. The sky
blue with cotton cloud. The sea
breathes and breathes
out in the bay--a soft sound
as easily overlooked
as my own breath. In the fuchsia,
the motor of a thousand bees
drones steady
and comforting. On this rock
I fear nothing. I am
a part of the lichen
and the stones. I breathe
in private with the sea. Stray,
thinned fragments of my soul
unite, and housed, find calm.
A bee flies toward me
in the light, out of the fuchsia's
dark globe. He dips,
homing, circling me,
circling me. He has journeyed
around the whole planet. He has
flown across the centuries
from the hives of an old, old
world. He gives back to me
the skinny little girl,
with sun-striped hair,
running in the wind. He
returns my mother
in her yellow dress,
and the squashed plum
inside my schoolbag.
* * *
Tree-Planting
I
Young trees left out in darkness,
an abandoned wheelbarrow, black plastic
merging with the night.
Weathered tools rest in the dark shed.
The tired woman comes in, eats
and goes to bed.
A forty watt moon lights the windy slopes.
II
Muddy boots stiffen by the doorjamb.
The clock stares from the wall.
She sleeps. She dreams
her body is younger, her bones strong.
A storm blows up. The moon hides.
She is struggling to stand in the wind
Tamped in clay, her feet are immobile.
her skin is becoming ridged and hard.
But her blood is woman,
it will not give in.
he body fights and sways, heaving
She wakes, trembling and cold.
She has won.
III
It is morning. Another tree planting day.
She drags on the clumsy boots.
Goes out to where the earth
waits to receive each sapling,
the tender, straw-balled roots.
* * *
Ancient Garden
To this ancient garden I am
a future ghost. A pale shape
in its tiredness that waters and weeds.
A warm pressure on the wintry earth,
a kneeling form bedding in plants
hopefully, like a pilgrim at a shrine.
It is aware of me, in its own scheme,
and tolerates the changes caused by my
succession. Feels, itself, wearing
by the seasonal round--the prunings,
the mulchings. A spate of wilderness
tangling its fragrances and it will know
that I have passed on.
It will be lost, of course, but slowly,
and not in my time. A beech tree
or a haze of blue-bells survives
for generations. But my devotion
will fall from it, evaporate. My
excesses and mistakes will run
riot to clog its furthest edges.
Though the clipped yew trees
those Victorian enthusiasts shaped
stand vigorous and green at any time,
a frail woman, her life grown thin,
would petrify if she did not move.
Would whiten among their harled roots. |
