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Our Ritual Distance
| Article
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15385 |
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Section : |
THE ARTS
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| Issue
Date : |
12 / 1989 |
347 Words |
| Author
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Jean Emerson
Jean Emerson is a California-based poet whose latest book of
poems, Not Alone, was published last month. |
The Grandmother Books
I am driven into this small corner of my life
Forced to steal these thin morning hours
I listen to the warm purr of the refrigerator
And unfold like a rain lily after a summer squall
I remember the circle of smooth black birds
Feel the updraft and the recurve of their white wing tips
Long for the recent history
The tumbling grey rocks of the Pedernales
The fragile five finger daisy
with its circle of chalk white petals traced in violet
No longer than your thumbnail
but so tough its fine roots shatter the limestone bluffs
I cling to the long slanting memories of the old times
Catch the blue flash of the NRA eagle
nailed to the shuttered gasoline station
The iridescence of a dragonfly hanging
over grass washed flat by last night's flood
I hear Charlie singing "It ain't going to rain no more"
to the thrum of Model A truck tires against tarvey roadbeds
on the way to the mortuary to pick up rented chairs
for the family reunion
In these stolen hours
I remember the Grandmother Books
The echo of whispered incantations
and promises
Shadow Dancing
You want me to tell you of some intense heart felt
joy. That tells me how little you knew our clan.
We no more believe in intense happiness
than in pain or good-bys. They were not
...
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