Para/Phrase

 

Ash Wednesday:

    a para/phrase

...did he use the same muscles

to paint as he did to pray?

                        Terry Tempest Williams

                        On El Bosco's  jardin de las delicias

it's a cashmere sort

of morning and early

enough and still

with dark and clouds

one great bank of them

melding enough

to be one mass adrift

which ever way the wind

is insisting has 

blotted out the pins

of light i've come to

depend on and so

haven't you and so

haven't we all

for the bravery

it takes to break  

down and shier and shave

the heavy wools grown

then shorn from 

the body that's worn them 

all winter long

how the lanolin can

smooth and soothe the winter 

roads of your hands 

and make them

a blessing to be touched

by.  wait for that.  wait.

for now the ewe

is still in service

to her coat and lamb 

and hasn't yet been flayed into

the cornucopia of her

labor and because 

she'll be delivering both

into the shepherd's chapped

and bleeding hands

we can wait it out

in cashmere in something

almost weightless

and soft as river bottom

rocks after snow has let

go and after ice also

and only so as trout know

to let go (remember going is going

back to the beginning)

there's still clouds that cover

there's still no seeable

light of the stars behind them

and the lambing is yet

on its edge       but listen: 

the wood's been felled 

and the fire's soon

lit and her flame

is a coal we coax

alone in our superstitious 

gloam of last year's palms

dried and burnt and rubbed

crosswise on our third

eye. and who believing wouldn't

see in the dark being lent to them

in anonymous sparks

lifted like lit

pricks of sin and snow

 

Notes on Daniel Chester French

 

Notes on Daniel Chester French

  

I

 

What’s more dramatic: the plaster maquette

Of Andromeda, her back flat against the stone,

Her left knee drawn as if to hold her against

Her own falling?  Or the life-size piece in solid

marble in the workshop at Chesterwood, stationed on

A wooden plinth so she could descend

 

Through the floor on the short railway

And be trained to take in the natural

Day, the entire white of her making her light as

Air outside and yet as ever still

Chained to the rock for her crime of being

Too beautiful. 

 

I’ve just ordered a new translation of Ovid’s

Metamorphosis, (they’re finally allowing

A woman her own publication – like Andromeda

Chained, the tongues of us

Have been shackled, governed, struck

By lightning.  Plucked charred from the soot.

 

I’ve seen Andromeda in French’s workshop.

She’s splayed in front of the Lincoln memorial

Study. Waiting maybe.  French’s fingers

Were like breezes, the arrival of wind, imagine,

Beat by the wings  of what will ultimately, (but not

From this workshop) save her.  Is she

 

In distress or ecstasy?  A sister outside

Of time to Bernini’s Saint

Teresa, similar postures, similar angles

Of the neck and hands, the bare feet

And raised knees (Teresa’s beneath her almost

Moving canopy of clothes)

 

  

 

 

II

 

They said she was his last – nearly

Completed by the time he died

At 81.  One single solid

Piece of Carrara marble. 

 

How she lies arched-back

Rock in rock on rock

Paused for all the rest of her

Existence.  I’ll say existence

 

Because she doesn’t live but she does

Exist.  She does stay

Stiff still in the chill.

(Feel her.  Right?)  (And tell me she isn’t

 

More than marble.) He thought

She was I bet.  His own remote

Pygmalion.  He made her

Beyond the clay maquette, rose her

 

Up out of the stone

And kept her

Chained there waiting.

Death is his

 

Pegasus.  How fitting, this horse being

Medusa’s son. His wings

Slam the air, and it pounds

Out in front of him

 

Like a Fury, suspends the flesh

In the air, rider and all.

I don’t know yet how the true

Story goes.  For the sake of this

 

Now, I’d like to

Imagine French lowering

His intimate chisel

When the wind arrives

 

From the valley, a kind

A kind, a kind of well, a kind of bride-

Groom.  The dust

Of his work is still

 

On his lips.  He licks them.

In the stone a chain

The smallest chain

Of all,

 

At the vein of her

Wrist, begins to lift

And rub against

Its companion.

Consider This:

 

Consider this:

 

when reading a love poem

even if it were

written for you it isn’t

written just

for you

just like rain isn’t itself

simply

one drop of water

or snow itself

no matter how unique

each crystal’d speck

isn’t one single flake.      It’s what falls

before and after it

it’s what is

the accumulation

of it

it is the container

and the keep or strain of it

how much it can

bear before it breaks

or reaches the lip

and ripples there against it

before it simply falls

though that may never be

seen and then it pours over

over and over

and over

until it is

no more

or if it were snow

it heaps and heaps on the door-

step and that first view out

across it after the storm

is virgin

is called being clean

(we even briefly,

conveniently,

forget what’s beneath)

being free from touch

though to reach you

and to touch you from where you are

seeing it all means to

mark the surface

unremarkably, the weight

of the white hiked up to the knee

and the drag of the toe

atop the clean

surface of things leading

both to and away from

the door standing open

(right? it’s standing open

and the jamb is frozen

and too the still unknown unshown

surface of the full (frozen also) rain

 

barrel covered in snow

 

as yet unbrushed

as yet heaping

as yet its winking crystals

are still

waiting and waiting for the arriving

light

 

Cormorant Alone

 

Cormorant Alone

 

          for Jessica

 

and holding its own

the soaked bird opens

its wings to the Kalamata

water-road and the spread loam

of cloud.  I can see each

 

discrete drop of water

on the scored webbing of

its four toes.  Is this bird

sitting there on a half-sunk

mud-stuck pine limb that’s

 

hunched up and also under

the withdrawing pond

water (water that will   

finally fall down the dam wall)

drying itself for flight

or for the simple light

breeze stirring each

 

feather pressing and letting

a lift like a composer

at her key or string or reed

become a listening

a new way to touch and be

touched see how

 

the hover and pluck

the tongue and lip

is pitch is tipped

into the listed

ear then into the wind

that’s sifted of the dust

from the lintel of the sun-

touched is lifting

it from the wing

 

into the lightness

of wind.  see then

the shedding

water? how it drops

onto the pond and is

instantly invisible

see how it is its own kind

of falling?  see the cormorant

crouch at its knee

to take wing

 

skyward or waterward

depending on which fish

it wants?  how can

either of these be less

 

than the right choice?

Or how can being neither

while simply sitting there

wings wide and drying

in the fading day

be less than the moment

that grounded it

it too

a momentary way-

station to flight?

A Gray Veil: Eclipse, Total, Lunar

A Gray Veil: Eclipse, Total,

Lunar

 

I have been able to hear a shadow,

And even perceived by ear

The passage of a cloud across

The sun . . .

 

                                Mary Joe Salter

                                Alternating Currents

 

Behind. And the pines rising

High and higher still

Up the incline to the only clearing

 

Descending into the goose pond.

The moon is in

Eclipse.  She is falling while

 

A gray veil is being drawn

Across her face, the way

A drape is drawn across the dead, soft

 

Hovering, almost not touching.  

What's beneath it gone.

Or the appearance of gone.

But not 

Some magician’s trick.  Simply

Shadow and the agreement

 

Among all the bodies that come

Between her and the full

Simplicity of her face. 

 

It will be another hour of her

Muted illumination.  The drawn

Cloth is being

 

Drawn yet.  Before it’s done

She’ll have set

Below the tree line,

 

Below the mountain

Shy if you’d like, coy if you’d

Rather, the cantilevered

 

Agreement already calibrated,

Anciently, when she was

Grit in the mouth of this galaxy

 

Nacre and ooze moving

Like sibling tongues: the hurt

Of wound and beauty

 

Shaped and continuously

Lathed: gouged, parted,

Skewed, and polished.

 

 

Abeyance, October

 

Abeyance, October  

After 'Light Wash' 1969

 

                          God tempers the wind 

                          to the shorn lamb.

  

Folding sheets at 3 am

I am reminded of how the

Wind would lift her clean

Wet linens pinned with two 

 

Pins on each end and one for good

Measure near the center.

To be sure of their security

She would throw them over

 

The line so the rope,

In the time it took the sheets

To dry from morning

Toward night, would insist

 

The midsection of itself

And assert its mark, a mark

She might use as her dividing/

Divining line when the bed

 

Got made, a demarcation,

her latitudinal parallel, a 1^st night 

bride, then night upon night

A first-night bride. 

 

I like the loud sound

Of wind in

Sheets and sails.  To me,

It meant the purpose

 

Of pinning was simply that:

A purpose.  But a purpose worth

Berthing.  Five pins, eight,

Ten, limited only by the number

 

 Of overall pins and loads

And the length of the clothes-

Line he'd strung for her. 

Battened, it didn’t matter, 

 

If a fierce enough wind found  

Its way up and into the cup 

Of that fitted

Sheet, something eventually

Was going

to come 

undone. But before it

 

Did, she pinned.  She pinned

And she pinned.  She slipped extra

Pins between her teeth, sucked

At the cedar and the spring,

 

The weathering and seasons of them.

Parallel lines of sheets, 

six or eight deep.  Big family.  

Three babies.  One scrub tub.

I see her between each blowing sheet  

Her blowing hair stands, trying

to come undone, thrust back

Under the bandana.  It was red,

 

That bandana.  It and she were

In between these lifting/

Receding waves of wet effectively

Wrung clean. It was her, a moving feast, 

Jupiter's Io between the lines, or a

Sentry from one post to the other

Groping for the pole to raise

The wet heft from the drag

 

And like a joust, walk it, trot it

Run it into the center of its

Crotch to gather it, lift it,

From the ground, gift it 

Its only hint, stiff pins yes,

Those stiff, stiff pins, pinched

Against the whiff and whisper 

Of wind

On the Eve of...

 

On the Eve of…

Photography is by definition mute.

C. D. Wright

Talking Pictures

It almost slipped by

without my inquiry: today,

being of sound mind

& almost sound memory,

(forget the body) I watched  

myself write September

21st and said isn’t it

the equinox soon?  The

autumnal equinox?  (saying

that word out loud: 

autumnal

in one press of breath

has some awed finality

to it, but the kind

of finality that hasn’t

arrived yet, know

what I mean?  Breathe

it and you’ll see) Because

the vernal equinox, 

back against the pelvis

of March, was and often

falls in on the 20th.  

And solstice summer:

the 20th.  So it would,

like water that seeks

its own level, be that winter

will balance the wind

of its own beginning

(and by beginning I mean

on paper, calendars, those

neat grids and numerals

and phases of moons

Jewish holidays and holy

days of obligation if

you’re marked by such

remembrances.)  It happens

it’s a full moon 

just now.  Earlier, 

around 3 a.m.,

there was a rainbow 

ring around the face

of her, and I’d wanted

to get a photo—

but I stopped

at the glass and just

watched the light

cast back in the metal

birdbath.  Lately, 

which means through

the spring and summer,

a young and hungry

black bear has been

ravaging our birdfeeders.  

And we keep forgetting

to take them to

the shed. Still, I count

myself fortunate 

that I was able to 

watch the bear late

last spring sit 

on his haunch 

and as contentedly

as any sentient,

as easy as springs 

and lubricated gears, 

open and close

the little windows 

meant for songbirds:

chickadees, nuthatches,

finches…

I don’t know where

the bear has got to

through the last

two seasons.  He’s

maybe watching me

through the leaves

deepening need

to release their green.

There’s in no way

discrete, piles of seeded

scat, studded 

with all that’s passed

through the unholy

or holy depending on

your bent, ropy colon.

I’ve got this full moon

telling me it’s going

to rain soon – at least

somewhere up in the air –

verga maybe, water

that will never fall

all the way, or the cool

beginnings of winter.  Shhhh.

I know.  I know.  

There’s one day left

of summer.  Picture it:

I thought it was lost

forever and had gone

on (to where is yours,

or anyone’s guess or 

conjecture) but it turns

out I’ve got one last day.

And a rainbow around

the full harvest moon – what

are they named?  

moon bows?  Moon 

rings?  There’s science

to it – ice 

crystals and prisms

and thin cirrus clouds,

the conditions

pristine and well timed

and not at all

random or happened

on by chance.  I wanted

the photo.  I really did.

But I wanted more

to know I’d be alone

long enough and outside

the reach of the free

moving bear who is 

the real reason I stay

inside, he who blesses

me with his squat

knee and posture

and keeps his claws

inside the tiny seed-

houses of birds and licks

his paws contentedly,

lick, lick, lick, his tongue

a blue cloud over 

his black moon maw,

falling in then coming up

falling in, and falling

in and coming up

until it’s all quite empty

or he’s had his fill,

whichever comes first

on this day the last day

of summer for anyone

who’s watching such 

moons that are full

and waning and taking

their ease between

trees and least cirrus’s 

now far-drifted east

and eased free 

as the breeze, 

as any breeze,

decrees.