Janet Aalfs - 2
Farzana's LightI am not this blood,
not these bricks and rocks father, brothers, cousins broke me with on the courthouse walk. Hell is theirs. And I am not. Chant by chant a lotus rises above the mud, and the moon in a river pool sinks into the heart of the song in this starlit, stonelit temple I am. In memory: Farzana Parveen Lahore, Pakistan, 2014 Ode to a Lost Sweater I see it now
like a simple word spoken into the wind. Bright button in our mother's palm from a hand-me-down we had each outgrown. Wool deep red as embers that smolder in a circle of stone, and the scent of Grandma's roses, her gracefully wrought cable stitch moths in an attic barrel had chewed until split. I see it like a phantom wound knits itself a scar, and a heart-spun word chanted into the wind calls down a star. What the Dead Want Me to Know and light finds us
with the other loves dawn sunders to define. ~Eavan Boland 1. John's Poem Cards Happier than I had ever seen, my father showed me his poem cards. Not to regret the black and white rabbit or the open door. Not to make up for sunshine mocking long-eared shadows that fled. And not that he wished he could stay more hopeful, less afraid. Then he laughed because each drawing, and the words that went with it, meant everything. How we only had this table, our heads bent over the cards, a certain darkness surrounding, and nothing felt distant. 6. A Bird's Tale Many who die become birds. I'd like to be one. An original tai chi sequence, Grasp the Bird's Tail, urges me to examine its homonym, each feathered word. Later in the form, more alive, Slant Flying, I'm there. Bones of lace admit the sky. This is what I know so far about dying. 12. Coyote Not there, but in my mind a fur-cloaked body hungry as an echo loped across Egypt Lake. I pondered the image and a presence grew. Wind through mountain laurel shivered green and licked the snow. Hiking to a further shore, I paused again in the sound of steps through crystal ice that hissed like shattered glass. From the future, or the past, you stopped and turned to show me who had called to whom – and your yellow eyes burned through the silent trees to mine, slate-blue. 15. Anne Jeanette's Tapestry Anne Jeanette sat down in the snowmelt, shallow span of water she swirled, quiet from the sky, painted from the trees, her baby brother, my father, asleep. He drank those lullabies. I watched through an upstairs doorway hands conducting the wind, a palindrome for balance. And though she couldn't have heard me, she offered toward my fingers in response to the question unasked a cat's cradle of words. Strings at angles hummed and shifted, gray from the rocks, sung from the finches, rooted in asters, purple and gold. Yes, this story, she said, a pasque flower my father trampled is the one I told to the hills, seven miles there, seven miles back. I was only a girl walking the world to be here. 16. Ascension I whispered. Eyes closed. I waited. Neck still limp. Beak darkly gaping, the songbird's body grew light as a shadow in my hands. I had no face but the wind. And though my prayer enveloped me I never thought it would fly huge and sudden into the trees. Between us such daring. The Work of LoveBlank
as the space between a shout and an echo I begin. Ebony the smoothest wood harder than all. To sing these black notes wandering, sculpted scales and rain fall shadows through my heart. Impossible as a snowflake in a furnace I begin. Nothing I have known before can lead me, disarmed as I am. The way a heart is made to know what it knows astounds. No guide but rhythms breathe music as I chisel, softer, more inward, more deeply still. |
The Tao of Zebras and Dessert The Tao is dark and unfathomable.
How can it make her radiant? Because she lets it. ~The Tao Te Ching Capitulation of stripes, no two patterned alike, brilliant canvas older than the world as dark and light. A poem within can shift the graph to balance rhythm's blood. What changed you, the doctor asked, pressure lower, sugar too. I've moved myself, been moved, the taiji heart's reply, in points and curves like caramel through cream. Everything swirls, even a murder of crows the fog blows in from nowhere. Softer, more clear, like an infant before it can smile, echoes original strings let fly return from past and future to the palms. Down to up, back to front, center axis snakes, full pulse and slither, no two chords the same. Breathing ground to sky forever woven, roots and leaves, even the wind can't flow without someone to touch. We notice music arrives. We sing the silence limbs can't hide. Sweet sweet shiver of air and rain washes the heart awake. Apple blossoms flare. A rabbit nibbles spears so green its ears quiver fire. Saying GoodbyeLie down, but not too flat, she said.
We blew kisses through the nursing home window, hands flat as flounders. I stepped on one once, buried in sand. It wriggled and I fell in the ice-cold shallows. Ribs lashed like a raft, I wanted to lie there, but not to die. In my undershirt, too smooth for a bra, I walked through the house holding a mirror like a large platter and looked down into it like into a glassy cove so it seemed like I was walking on the ceiling. I had to step over light fixtures and lintels. The mirror was completely flat yet so many sharp things flew out of it. Beyond those walls her favorite tree shook its dark mane, and the sky rounder than a wagon wheel, and the clip-clop of hooves. Through the glass, I could still see her white hair. And I thought, I could lie down in snow-clouds, and open close my limbs, and leave an angel in the field. Ground: We
tongue cracked
dust in her teeth stomach a shriveled leaf the groveling length of time it takes a hungry woman to pray in the undergrowth a wren's intricate music roots absorb cadence of honey syntax of milk brilliant phrase in silken corn rabbit the brambles hide mountain language soft spotted newt and molly moocher's cap protection fierce the ribald nettle stings her voice to rise *Italics: June Jordan Heron, Mystic, Artist
...the plunge itself
their desire, a way to be subsumed, consumed utterly into their work. —Denise Levertov A tall slate-blue bird walked across the white rooftop. Sharp talons splayed, it placed each careful step, and turned and paused. Feathers to shadow, stillness liquid, every glowing curve, and the pointed beak exact, between us steel-framed glass, each solid pane a mirage. I have known before and after, more lasting than any wound, the feeling in its gaze I must attempt to dance, though I fail again and again, such a joyous failing. Giraffe and Stone
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Endangered
roots shattered
in the mines a catamount my shadow silent as hunger staring we could not find our names |
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