My Poetry

THE STREAM

Plainfield Vermont’s gravel turned to gem

Under wet, rolling, satin-weave.

In the constant pound of liquid, rock

Became ornament, touch-point

For play, a girl’s obsession.  Things

In volume help fill a mind with forget.

Anything may be used to forget;

The gathering of pebbles, pretend gems

Faithfully reaped from Grammie’s stream, things

For display are dark secrets set in satin.

Like seedlings in a cold frame, pointed

Vertically, smooth and rounded rocks

Wait to be stroked (as on a lap held rocking)

Between fingers until water forgets

To be liquid.  With the drying a point

Is made, cherished pearl and emerald once gem

Beneath pools, turn quickly to granite like satin’s

Underside.  Sometimes precious things

Are only precious when retained by the thing

That gave them beauty.  “Gram, were my rocks

Part of a great big mountain and did the satin

Rivers break them off?” Yes, shards forgot

their love affair with mountain, dreamt of gemmy

skins and took the river’s hand pointing

At new birth.  All canals point

Toward birth.  The delivery of infant things

To expectant children who fold gems

To their chest like baby dolls, rocking

Away ceaseless crush and bruise.  Forgotten

Is the relentless trek that formed the satin.

When small broken fingers made of satin

Call stone beloved even when the points

Of water evaporate and luster is forgotten,

Mountain’s safety and water’s frame are things

Transformed in the beholder’s eye.  A rocking

Grandmother knows about hugging stone to gem.

On a satin-stitched porch in Vermont, a girl’s things

Are pointed in rows on a windowsill, heart-shaped rocks

Forgotten with years, traded for the gem of memory.

*********************************************************************************

What Begins the Obsession

Here at the Louvre

the same deceptions

of painted whirligigs

usual sculptures

and hints of human until,

I turn into the 17^th Century--

to seizure of color--

this rectangular vat

of spices with faces

peeking through grain.

My eyes fall into eddy

of mustard and saffron,

bead between cardamom

and Madagascar vanilla,

seesaw over tarragon,

swim through paprika,

to finally alight on a column

of wet cinnamon. 

Such centrifuge of color pushes

me into wood, this slatted seat. 

Exhale and focus

compels me toward

your name---

Michelangelo Merisi, dit le Caravage (v.1571-1610)

La Mort de la Vierge

1605-1606

All others seem

like some old guy’s sacred

nightmares

drawing eyes up

to unnatural women

swooning into space.

But this—

this ember sheered

window into Wake

exposes a real dead woman.

Relatives and friends

rapt in their own spaces,

an event happening now,

just beyond

this museum room.

Inside paint

I am incarnated.

From this point I search for you

and enter

every door

you’ve opened.