- It's a real pleasure for us to welcome all of you, lots of old friends, some new faces, and this is
- our 30th anniversary reading. It's hard to imagine that long. So it's a very special occasion for us,
- and we're glad that you're here to share it with us. And after the reading, we have things to eat and
- a cake to cut.
- So we hope that you'll all be able to stay for that. I did want to, we do want to thank some people
- who've been important in making this happen and all of the things that you see out there. Want to thank
- Patricia Colon for all of her design work on the CDs and the posters. Carlos Colon of Megagrooves for
- Engineering
- Shauna Ritter and Deborah Phelps for their assistance with the CD and introductions in an original music
- and playing. Helen May and May's Greenhouse for the plants. I want to thank the John Waldron Arts Center,
- which has provided us a home for many years now for these readings. I want to especially thank Carol
- Hoagel and Mike Price for booking and technical arrangements.
- Leanne Atkins for working at the door, Kim Zimmerman for videotaping the performance, and everybody
- who's joined us as a member over all of the years, and last but not least, you, the audience, for listening
- and making these readings wonderful occasions for all of us. It's my pleasure now to introduce the first
- reader, Joyce B. Adams. She's lived in Bloomington since 1991,
- A little known fact about Joyce is that she's traveled through every township in Connecticut. There's
- more than 150 of them. Words in all shapes have been her passion. She has been a seller of used books
- and a librarian and is a wonderful poet. Joyce. Thank you, Anya.
- I didn't bring poems from 30 years ago. The two I'll start with are in my book, A Secret Swing, and
- are about 11 years old. Autumn question. A Thursday sky has drunk up the brightness of trees, leaving
- pale shadow colors
- of leather, sandstone, and fading bone. Only a young maple still prances yellow, given gleaned by a
- frame of green pines. The cornrows are parchment ghosts, dry as an old man's mind, that bends over to
- tin, the withered overturned stems of old loves and hates, the stubble of past works,
- straightening only when it contemplates what autumn sleeves will dance the round above his grave. Third
- generation. Omar wore dresses to garden and hike the Volksmarch. Omar beat rugs with an iron flower,
- never learned to drive, quoted Goethe
- while dad's uncertain knife attacked the roast. Know you the house, its roof on columns rests. I never
- walked into her upstairs rooms until I'd pled the case for passage with the scarred and jumbled treasures
- that permitted entry. In some bureau there lay I knew the secret of a never named uncle. When I stepped
- off the rug to peek,
- The room was watching, so I hurried back as mom in daughter-in-law uniform sought to gain territory.
- At home, I didn't dry three forks apiece or struggle to keep linen clean at dinner. But then home had
- no Schubert summer nights when opa's photo shook for joy at scratchy Leder. And in the homebound Studebaker, I inhaled
- whole kingdoms from my parting gift, an ancient rose. These are much newer. The next one I'll read is
- on our CD, which you'll be seeing later on. Feathers. Don't look at an albatross or let women on board.
- Breast milk provides immunities.
- The pelican feeds its young from its breast. The little twins rest on their double down pillows. Owls
- are death. In the dark, wandering eyes wend their way, rendering every disguised thing visible. One
- pair of eyes rolled back at dawn, dragging a giant black magnolia tree. Nights, my neighbour got fragrant
- from her jasmine.
- At Christmas, drunk driving is at its highest statistically. It's difficult to book a flight on holiday.
- New Year's means evening gowns pluming out over taxi seats. Dazzle me pink with constellations
- on Independence Day. The bald eagle knows the Declaration and Constitution by heart. After near extinction,
- the bison is being restored and buffalo are becoming a popular and unique product.
- Small egrets associate with cattle. White strewn with birds, the California rice fields achieve green
- to the fifth power. Six is green, blue is 14. Dawn rides in on Robin's wings. Three is yellow, eight
- pints to a gallon. Call on me anytime for calligraphy carved with a genuine quill. The border can be
- gold and purple. She's the girl in the lavender hat. No, I don't know her parents.
- To refill my drink, I stroke a swirling lake of slippery voices. In the hot noon sun, bubbles burst
- over stone, shoe soles sizzle down city blocks like a breakfast griddle. The crow adjusts his sextant
- and navigates his short line as the sun singes his wings. The pinions of Icarus paled as they liquefied
- on his plunge into raging waves.
- The Gulf of Mexico is subject to severe hurricanes and subsequent flooding. Noah's dove flew back with
- the sprig, but our bird is lost at sea. Combustible. Sun drizzles over hot asphalt, rolls into stiff
- shoulder grass, memory a dry light,
- outlines each walking hour, littered Sunday street, lethargic air, taught pink rose buds at driveway,
- black holes crowding church lot still, rich coffee from styrofoam railroad line over cinder gravel,
- food of fire not yet struck memory, damp morning pillows, off-white plastic nests of supermarket eggs,
- telephone half voice, I hear you,
- Ecru pumps size nine telephone days on rung. Six left turns on weekday drives. Tan rice steams as beige
- tofu stir fries. The wrong, wrong ring. Props with hollow backs rest slantwise on backstage walls. This
- tinder life at a given moment offers itself to flare of shame or fury, dry midday light,
- flames last night's scenes quick shuffled through comedy of errors, through melodramatic accusations
- to hasty exit left. Cinder's cool today, sun will too. Past the deserted insurance agents, the family
- restaurant now stands three hours darkened. Crows pick pavement, then green threaded wings rise to sun
- side. Pupils shrink to delineate their purple black spines.
- glare smolders under shade tree rows, street narrows toward horizon. The shadows suggest an act too.
- The last one that I'll read tonight was inspired by an exhibit at the Indiana University Art Museum.
- Coffin in the form of a fish rendered at the workshop of Ernest Anangkwe
- in Tishigana. The pink fish stretches long as a canoe, swims in air with vibrant fins, yellow as a parade
- float over its museum platform, ready for the carnival tilt-a-whirl. Missy, mister, you need a killer-diller
- thrill, you need chill, try-a, try-a, it's tight, you sit light won't spill.
- slide in for a fly inside the shiny sea where the octopus hides. Try a right now Nicola ticket, best
- bargain in the carny. Try a ride through forever. One ticket works fine for time past all time. Thank you.
- in the Bloomington area as a storyteller and visual artist, Patricia C. Coleman is also an accomplished
- poet. She is co-host of WFHB's A Cycle of Poets, and hostess and producer of the Fourth Friday Poetry
- Series at the Runciful Spoon, as well as facilitator of Poets for Peace. She has seven works on display
- currently,
- at Roots Vegetarian Restaurant. Let's welcome Patricia Coleman. Good evening. I'm going to begin by
- reading just a really short poem called Poems That Ride.
- to take a ticket, just open your ears and listen to poems that ride on sound, music, chant, tone,
- and breath. Some hum atop connections unfolding within and through unknown spiraling beats. The next
- two poems I'm going to read are from the early 70s.
- Spring War, 1970. This is the coming of spring, but wait. This is not like any other spring. The grass
- does not come up green, the flowers do not bloom, and there is no laughter of children. The sun is shining
- brightly. I hear some birds singing, but wait. This is unlike any other spring.
- Where are the children? Where is the laughter? Where is the grass? Where is the blooming flower? I don't
- see the children. I don't see the grass. I don't see the blooming flower. All I see is what used to
- be children laughing. All I see is where grass may have come up and it once was green.
- All I see is what started out as a blooming flower. Where has it all gone? It has gone with the bombs,
- the mass killings, the POW camps, the machine guns, the mortars, the grenades, the killing of innocent
- people, and the dying of many of our brothers. This spring and the joys that come with it
- And the feeling of being alive has gone where all good things go with the coming of war. I was 15 when
- I wrote that. What I told myself. This is from 1970, 1971. I told myself that I would never be like
- them. I did not want to be like them.
- and ever have my children wishing for our family to come to an end like I did. And then I found myself
- in a relationship, and I saw that I was too much like them. I had become like them, only speaking in
- fear when the pot dared to boil over, reopening scars within my young heart, spreading bottomless sadness
- all over my world, I had become like them. They dared not try to find words to express their hurting
- hearts. And though I thought I would not ever be like them, I found myself just like them. Festering,
- silently suffering, I knew that I must go away to save myself
- I must go away or dissolve into that unhappy stream they had flowed into. I must go away or be lost
- as I felt my parents lost to us children and to themselves, but found them sadly inside of me. From
- the rest of these are, I think, a little happier. Well, actually, one more here.
- This one is titled Bitter Feelings, and I wrote this about one of my brothers who is a year younger
- than I am. Bitter Feelings. That is not how I want to think of him. Sadness and pain, brilliant and
- sharp as bald lightning. I do not want to hear the slow gathering of breath or imagine the slow journey
- around a city block.
- hands on rungs of shiny metal, walker rungs, him stepping one foot in front of the other, or him tapping
- along upon his two canes. I wonder if he thinks of the jazz that he so loves to help to distract his
- agitated mind from the emotional pressure of being so present in his understandings
- of the consequences of war. Raging, bitter, wounded, wheezing, he followed in traditional footsteps
- like a trusting hawklit. I believe he was expecting a better outcome than that of our father. He could not see.
- that when you examine the fine print about property, it never grants the same considerations of the
- ruling selves. His voice carries the strength of his feelings of his personal betrayal. Clearly now,
- he is broken glass. Awake now, he exists in a fouled nest, betrayed by country
- the beloved country he served. And for that commitment to the army at 49, he now has but a sliver of
- health in his life. With it, he pledges to let the truth of his circumstances be known with what gas
- of breath he has left. Now it's going to be a little bit easier.
- Imagine Bee's Journey. This is on our CD. Palm-sized blossoms, butter yellow, and squash orange, covering
- tall poplars like dangling cloth origami Christmas flowers. Bees climb skyward to reach, the sweet nectar
- returning to the hive dizzy from the weight of heavy loads.
- Dusted leg sacks full of golden gleanings following an invisible line, drawing clear directions to the
- high map. A lone hummingbird dashes about in delight, sipping from the berry bowl of wild honeysuckle
- bush fruit and shallow wells of wild rose blossom nectar. Neither bee nor hummingbird knows of our fears,
- or of our sufferings. Perhaps if we could gather in love enough, we too might fly dizzy in our fullness,
- our radiant hearts gleaming. Germination test. Selecting and assorted few seeds from small packets kept
- 13 years fast inside old ball glass jar tombs, laid them out in marked rows identifying them with names
- like Carolina Seva, Tarahumara, Leather Britches, Trail of Tears, Long Island Cheese, Mississippi Silver,
- Purple Hole, and Whippoorill Peas.
- Each upon double layered moistened paper towels, plastic wrap covered to hold in moisture. Old newspapers
- topping all off blocks out the light. All this because we hope that some of the seeds might after so
- much time still awaken and slowly swell to life. Turning back papers, inspecting day by day to behold
- life's miracle contained within.
- Creamy solid centers of stillness, hoping for small magnetic charges, pulses of life to emerge through
- dry, smooth seed casings. Then, oh, miracle of concealed essence, time has not dried most of your being hearts.
- to stone. Look there at the obvious wrinkling of swollen skin. It is a life sign. And notice there how
- a white nub has appeared and protrudes from the tip of that speckled one. Three days more and large
- curved roots protrude from a few of the larger old beings, each wearing thousands of short defined root hairs
- thick like old shag fur, forcing paper towels to rise upward. Taking out a sharp knife, I hand it to
- you and watch as your small, careful hands slowly slice a saturated seed open along an already separating
- side seam, and inside we find
- miniature perfection, cotyledons, the first green leaves to come laying together much like clasping
- hands. And this is my last poem, swim. Diving in and finding the water surface far above the head, swim.
- Will I be lost into confusion within this moment of darkness?
- Swim. What can the body remember about being whole and floating intently before the first breath? Swim.
- Confidence is a cracked seed birthing unseen slender hairy roots, becoming visible as stems, leaves,
- fruits, and seeds. Swim. Slight sip of air reserved opens heart.
- Clear mind sees all. It understands this moment. Rising clear. Streak like a dolphin. Break through
- the surface tension. Breathe. Breathe. Then dive deep within. Swim. Transmute irritations. Make a pearl.
- Thank you.
- has lived in Bloomington since 1979 and has been a member of Five Women Poets since 2001. She lives
- with two very self-satisfied cats and works in one of the branch libraries at IU and Haynes.
- We may have figured by now that we talked about having each of us read a poem from about 30 years ago,
- if we had one, in honor of the 30th anniversary. This is potentially the most embarrassing to me as
- the youngest member of the group. I dug back in my notebooks. I was 13, and this was me at 13.
- Summer song. All one word, summer song, because that's artsy, and I was artsy, and 13. Summer song.
- If I were a goddess on a cloud, I would look down on this land and smile. And my smile would warm the
- earth like the summer sun. As it is, I'm only a girl accustomed to summer. And I look up at that cloud
- goddess, and I feel her warm smile. And think, as I watch the cloud shapes blur and change with the
- wind, I think, she cannot be happy.
- for she has only a cloud to rest on, and I have all the world. I'm only a girl accustomed to summer,
- but I look back at that cloud goddess and I smile back at her. That was 13. Moving on. Have we plugged
- our CD yet? We have a CD. This poem's on it. This is called Fog After Fog, and it does start out with a little
- Older teenage angst at 19. 1, 1980. Hushed night, March. I'm 18 and in college. Limestone buildings
- blurred, streetlights hanging their desperate glow. I want to be somewhere, someone else. The road outside
- this courtyard could be cobblestone, the cars, carriages.
- I imagine the hollow clop of hooves in timeless mist, how it would echo in this veiled landscape, how
- far away I could go. I watch the window of someone I want who is not alone tonight. Fog is damp against
- my skin, bitter iron on my tongue. Two, 1995. Traveling back roads at night, the two of us silent. I
- can smell the lake from here.
- Instead of going home, she just drives, not looking at me, the radio a static blur. If we just keep
- driving, there's no one else. The fog collects in small valleys and closes in around us, our own headlights
- reflecting against what looks like solid wall, but is only missed that we are driving into headlong,
- full speed. Three, 2001. Morning at the harbor.
- Tied to this wharf, the complicated tangle of fishing boats sighs with every tiny wave. The ferry is
- late, and I wait on this bench outside the harbor master's station, watching eagles disappear,
- white on white, into fog. The mist and the masts of all these boats look like an old painting, as if
- I've stepped into watercolor. I could live here, learn to name these shades of gray.
- Everything is gray and damp and everything is water. And everything, even the high speed ferry to Boston,
- everything waits for the lovely fog to lift. This next poem, this is something I've never done before.
- I'm reading a poem that I wrote today. They tell you not to do this, I'm doing it anyway.
- It's not even typed. I went to an incredible concert last night up at Clues Hall with Bobby McBaron,
- and I was so blown away. He's just so wonderful. And I thought a lot about how singers and dancers experience
- their creativity through the body and how envious I am of that as a writer, because it's very easy as
- a writer to get separated from your body and your work. And I thought about learning to swim, which
- just happened last year.
- This is called to listen by singing. Oh, the difference between dialogue and harmony. How I understood
- in one blue moment to give myself to water and I swam. How the oh of my mouth singing was a listening.
- The difference between to and with love. How we became one beast. How pleasure pleasures.
- the long night and the body of water. There are things beyond words that I've known all my life and
- don't yet know it. Here, right now, the rising moon with its unbearable pull. The tides a cliche, an
- inevitable harvest. There is knowledge in the body, wisdom in water. At 42, I learned to swim.
- A sudden descant rains down upon my head, a cloud of angels, and I open my own mouth. The oh of my voice,
- my voice. This is called Provincetown August. And there's a phrase in here that I was sitting there
- in Provincetown writing this poem at a picnic table just off the harbor.
- I was writing, and I stopped, and I looked up, and I thought, what should I write next? And a young
- man said something in his cell phone. Oh, OK, that's what I write next. Serendipity. Provincetown, August.
- Tonight, the world is so beautiful and brave that I want to marry it. The world is beautiful and already
- dying, as am I. Commercial Street is alive with its high season stream of drag queens on roller skates,
- golden retrievers,
- suburban dyke families with SUV strollers, et cetera. A young man says into his cell phone, the world
- is broad and wide, and it is. The quartered moon rises over the tall granite monument that last night
- was wrapped in fog. The breeze across the harbor smells of salt and slightly of fish. The disco at the
- end of the beach thumps and bumps insistent. The end of the season is just a hint on the breeze.
- the slightest, most barely noticeable chill, elusive as a fluke through fog, there, just there, and
- gone for now. The dying world is beautiful and brave, and I do want to marry it. And tonight I find
- that I already have. This is called My Clothes.
- Some days I can't even wear my clothes without getting them muddy or bloody or losing my jewelry or
- tripping over my own shoes like a fool. Days like that, I wish I could be unclothed without being naked,
- sleek as a minke whale, protected as a swift fish. I would fly from morning into night and introduce
- myself to angels, relying on their forbearance and the skeleton key of my own name.
- Then I notice the stain on my collar, ink on my sleeve, the undarned sock where my toe pokes out. And
- I stumble back to earth, where every rise and set, each transit of the stars, hurdles past outside the
- confines of my stunningly limited grace. This last poem is pretty new, but not from today. Pretty new.
- It hasn't got a title yet. It did when I took it into the group, and now it doesn't anymore.
- But it will again. And this is about a dog. It might be called Dog Poem. The dog leans against my leg,
- wriggles his stub-tailed butt, twists his neck till he's peering sideways up at me as I scratch and
- rub the itchy places. He's been chasing herons all morning. That wildness, their grace, their legs that
- trail behind them as they lift, their certain flight, both arrow and bow,
- How the dog must have barked and darted back and forth, nearly launched himself into the early Sunday
- sky, sleek with joy and wanting. How he must have curved around himself, spiraled, slick black fur flying,
- herons launching unperturbed, his frenetic barks, as their wings describe to the currents left after
- last night's rain. I scratched and rubbed the itchy places, and he is pleased.
- has forgotten herons and all that uncoiling wildness, is content, delighted even, bowing and squirming
- in a full-bodied grin, to be near humans, to be nearly human. But underneath the comedy of his outrageous
- happiness and love, I hear the faintest whispered rush of wings. Thank you.
- Antonia Matthew is one of our founding members of Five Women Poets. I asked her what to say to introduce
- her and she did tell me what not to say and so I won't. But Tonia's voice has been one of the steady
- voices in Bloomington over the years, a steady voice of the women's community and the poetry community
- and the peace community and she's much appreciated in this town and we're very grateful to have her
- with us tonight, Tonia Matthew.
- Thank you, Ann. That was a very mild introduction. I appreciate it. And I know Anya said this at the
- beginning, but I so want to appreciate you being here. I look around and I see many faces who have been
- with us, certainly at readings when we first started doing meetings in 1984, which was 20 years ago,
- but over the years that we've been writing. And we so appreciate you because
- Poetry needs its listeners, and you've been such faithful listeners. It's been really wonderful. My
- first poem is going to come from the little, this is how we were putting chapbooks out in those days,
- that after Sandra Gilbert's class where Helen and I met, we put out a class chapbook. We called it Rose,
- Where Did You Get Those Fruitful Ambiguities?
- And I can explain to you during the reception why we recorded that if you want to. And I'm going to
- read, we were given an exercise to write a list poem and I think Helen is also going to write, read
- her list poem too. So I'm going to start off by reading one of these poems and it's called Frog, hence
- the shirt. Frog, frog leap, frog gleap, leap gleaping to the pond like thumbnails creaking,
- Up trees like suckered gray leaves creeping, yellow eyes popping, wide throat throbbing, you bug-tongue
- log-hogger. Hopping from old tales of princely ball catcher and pillow snatcher. In Isaac Walton's book,
- used lovingly, sewn with one stitch from the upper front leg to a hook.
- Hatching from spawn in jars by windows, you roly-poly through the nursery bedrooms to be heard in sidewalk
- cafes across the channel, legs elegantly crossed, ordering pano. Refreshed, you leap continents, infiltrating
- the Malaysian jungle to harmonize nightly with enemy snipers. Like marsh fire, you rise from the cauldron to lie,
- an edible dissection on the table among the formaldehyde and the white bordeaux. You stick in my throat.
- In the end, I, too, croak." As well as knowing Helen as a poet,
- In the writing groups, I also worked for a summer at her greenhouse, her family greenhouse. And this
- is an event that happened one summer at the greenhouse. Among the vegetables, summer day at the greenhouse,
- the potatoes in the bin are growing fingers, white, fat. As I stand bagging onions, I see them. They
- point at me.
- Here's one. Here's one. They beckon. Come, come. A heavy, damp earthiness rises like a cloud. I ignore
- these potatoes. We have not been introduced. They have not attended the right schools. They do not hold
- a knife and fork correctly. The potatoes are unabashed.
- They jostle each other grittily, continue to reach out. Each fingertip is a moon eye reflecting emptiness.
- The onions rustle nervously as the potatoes begin to sing, fingers beating time, follow us, follow us
- into the dark. We will take you away into the dark. The sun is still shining through the open windows,
- Customers pass unconcerned. A breeze comes in the doorway. The smaller potatoes begin to whistle. The
- song grows louder. Take you, take you away, away. Then, in the breeze, the tomato and marigold plants
- are shaken. Their leaves rub together and a sharp scent rises. The potatoes grow quiet.
- Their fingers relax. The little moons sink. Their voices subside. Into the dark. Into the dark. Time
- for your break. I wipe my forehead with a dusty hand and quickly, fingers shaking, I bag the potatoes,
- stapling the top closed twice over.
- You knew what goes on in the back room in the nursery. The next poem I'm going to read is sort of nostalgic.
- I remember reading it at Aquarius Books when Aquarius was still open and the store was actually on North
- Grant. It had a funny little room at the north side of the North Grant.
- building where now Cafe Django is and we have a little reading there and I just wanted to read a poem
- from that time. It's called My Mother Provides a Clue. Breakfast is over and before we walk the dogs
- on this first morning of my visit, I help my mother make my stepfather's bed. We smooth the bottom sheet,
- fold his pajamas, plump up his pillow.
- Now we secure the top sheet with a corner fold whose name I have forgotten. I'm a perfectionist, says
- my mother briskly. She comes over to my side of the bed and refolds the sheet. When my younger daughter
- read this poem, she said, well, mom, when I load the dishwasher, I know you go over and redo it.
- So I guess mothers, you know, we're all alike. This is a new poem. It's somewhat a change of pace. It's
- called Living in the World. All morning, two robins calling, calling, a fledgling out of the nest again.
- Where? One bird on a neighbor's tall back fence, the other swaying on a telephone wire, calling.
- calling. These cries pull me out into the high weeds by the fence. The weeds, the wild rose tangle,
- the low mulberry branches surrounding me in green light. The fledgling must be near, but I can't see,
- hear it. What if I frightened the parents away? Is it in a bush or crouched on the ground?
- Neighborhood cats are sure to be drawn to this plaintiff calling, calling. I imagine them stalking through
- dimness to circle, tails lashing. I slap at mosquitoes, then stand still, hold my breath. Nothing. I
- can't rescue them all, I tell myself. It's time to go to work. I stumble out, thorns catching my clothes.
- Haven't I tried? Haven't I done all I can? But there is still that calling, calling. Too many fallen
- fledglings. Too many marauding cats. And across the world, weeping, cursing, rises over bloodied bodies,
- smoking rubble.
- My last poem is an old poem again. It appeared in our first chapbook, which is out of print, unfortunately,
- although we gave a copy to the library so you could go and read it at the public library. And it's kind
- of a favorite of mine. It has memories from childhood, memories of the Second World War, memories of
- England. An act of remembrance for Mercier. I drive past your house.
- my wartime home, always my home from home. Surely I just missed seeing you this time. Surely you are
- out of town. The stone lions and the climbing roses are not there, nor the wartime potato patch in the
- flower bed, nor the bricked in windows that made our basement air raid shelter. Yet I can imagine if
- I pulled up in front
- got out, opened the gate, and walked up the gravel drive. You would be there in the doorway before I
- had reached the steps, stout and smiling, ginger hair crinkled, arms wide. Tonya, my dear, embracing
- me beneath the enormous engraved picture of Wellington's victory and Queen Victoria's words. Please
- understand
- that no one is depressed in this house. We are not interested in the possibility of defeat.
- It does not exist. All through the party, I kept looking towards the door, listening for something I
- couldn't hear. I was expecting you to arrive, bringing that laughter I counted on for years. But one
- winter morning, getting up early, as you did,
- Through air raids and holidays, fog and sun, to make your cup of tea, you fell and left without saying
- goodbye. I have not cried for you. I have not said goodbye. I imagine you still in the doorway, arms
- wide to greet me. How else can I bear your absence? As real and permanent as the loss of the alums,
- at the end of the garden. Thank you. It's such an honor to have had 30 years of delight of listening
- to Helen's poetry and working with her on my poetry and our friend's poetry and her poetry. It's just
- been an amazing experience.
- Helen is from Monroe County and she knows the people and places of this land. And over these 30 years,
- she has shared with us her childhood memories, her hopes, her dreams, her sorrows, and her abiding love
- and attention to the land. She's our Mary Oliver. Welcome Helen May.
- I guess you know nothing's going to measure up to that. We have been writing as a group since 74. And
- I went back and looked at some poems that I thought maybe I would scrape up for you. There is a famous
- poem called 13 Ways of Looking at a Blackbird. Well, we were given the assignment of writing 13
- ways poem of some kind. So the subject I chose was apples. Thirteen apples. One, three last apples hung
- like portents on the topmost bow. Two, he exhaled orchard odors and both of his lidless eyes reflected
- apples. Three,
- Dear lady, you need not be ashamed. Atalanta, two years hence, will also stoop for apples. Four. Dark
- apple seeds glittered dangerous in her hand. Cyanide, she said. Five. As divers plunge, so we entered
- the cellar and its musky sea of apple air. Six.
- sharp-edged felicity to lie legs dangling in a tree and eat with pilfered salt forbidden apples. Seven.
- Born in the plattered boar's head or a smile, perhaps because its mouth was full of apples. Eight.
- The apples we noted somewhat sourly were all crabs. Nine. That night to Westward, someone spilled the
- apples. The sound was disturbingly like thunder. Ten. Having discovered gravity, I became uneasy at
- the thought of having sat so often under apples. Eleven.
- That hot October noon, alone among endless apples, all I heard were crickets and the whine of yellow
- jackets. No voice, no falling foot, no calling bird. 12. Realizing that the trees wore snow, not flowers,
- he thought so much for hopes of apples. And 13. Oh, comfort me with love, for I'm sick of apples.
- And this one is about a year later when we first were working in the group. We had just been out west
- traveling and I'd seen a few things that impressed me quite a bit. Lame Deer, Montana, the Northern
- Cheyenne Crafts Center. The screen on the lower half of the door is torn. The door sags. The porch floor
- is worn smooth. Inside it is the same.
- Walls, scratched glass counters, the desk in the next room, the weathered woman sitting there, all worn
- with much long use. Inside the cases and behind are brilliant beadwork, earrings, necklaces, white,
- blue, yellow, red, and standing silent, reserved before strangers, three young women of the people.
- Yeah, I'm reading vacation poems tonight. Twilight in the Smokies. The mountains turn blue as evening
- settles in. Ranked one behind another, they look like waves, a sea with a rise and fall too slow for
- human eyes. Wide oceans once lay here. Their ancient beds have long been turned to stone, then folded
- and raised high.
- Pressed somewhere in those layers swim the bones of old leviathans still moving with the rhythms of
- their ancient sea. This is from Utah. Seeing the desert. Stand in the Escalante wilderness beneath the
- shade of a pinyon pine.
- Feel your skin crack with dryness like the mud bottom of an empty pond. Cracks that feel deep enough
- to let out the red inside. Let escape the pudding, a curdle of brains, the pitiful hidden moisture of
- lungs that makes breathing possible. It makes breathing possible. Imagine living here, not knowing any
- other place. Then look again. See the staunch ramparts of bare stone.
- the lace of little footprints in the dust. Inhale the profound perfume of the resin sweating pine. Now
- we're in Oregon. Oregon Beach. When daylight came after a night of storm, we walked the windy shore
- from tide to tide, leaving home just as it began to ebb.
- No pause, no rest till noon, just at its turn at an inlet where bare silver, I'm sorry, let me start
- over again. When daylight came after a night of storm, we walked the windy shore from tide to tide,
- leaving home just as it began to ebb. No pause to rest till noon, just at its turn at an inlet where
- bare worn silvered logs were thrown high
- on the granite shingle. There dug in our pockets for bread and cheese, poured out our beach-combed treasures
- on the rocks, counted our shells, agates, and bits of wood. The prize of all, a float of bubbly glass,
- its blue globe somehow drifted safely here from nets cast months ago in Asian seas. Then sheltered from
- the wind by the logs,
- from the sea wind by the logs, we napped and woke to find the tide full turned, and beginning to gnaw
- at the beach again. Reaching home at twilight, built a fire, and now, from our snug kitchen window,
- watched the sun descend, wink out extinguished in the curve of sea." And this is about where I live
- here in Monroe County, ghosts.
- Monroe County, Indiana. Our old house has stood here near the curve of a creek for at least 100 years.
- It sits at the top of a smooth rise that drops green toward the stream. It's a pleasant place, usually
- a breeze in summer, with the murmur of the water day and night. Sometimes in the garden after rain,
- we find arrowheads, whole or broken,
- or flaked pieces of flint just right to fill the space between fingers and palm, scrapers or cutters
- for some work. My mind sees Indians living here, a good place near the water with shade, maybe with
- gardens of corn down slope where the ground levels out a little, maybe just a camp while berries were
- ripe or during deer hunting time.
- They say Indians used to travel upstream in canoes when the water was high. They went as far as the
- grist mill that used to stand five or six bins farther up. The mill was built by one of the first white
- men to live in this area. Between here and there, a broad field lies beside the creek. There is a little
- hill in its center, now half pasture, half trees.
- My father said it was the place the old settlers' picnic used to be held each summer. I imagine them
- gathering there with their wagons and children, their fried chicken, ham and biscuits, buttermilk and
- homemade wine. I wish I could really see what happened in these places, give form and truth to imagination.
- I'd like to watch the hands that form the flint. I'd like to taste the buttermilk and after dark,
- Sit by a fire and listen to gossip, family news, and ghost stories. This is a very new poem. A Virtue.
- The porcelain cat sits on the atagerre. He is black with white nose and chin, white tips on paws and
- tail. His expression entirely neutral, his eyes wide.
- Leaves of the plant beside him arch over, fall well below the glass shelf, but do not touch him. Sitting
- apart, he sees all, reserves judgment, and if he has opinions, keeps them to himself. And this is the
- last poem I brought this evening. Bird of Darkness. Listen to the eerie calls of barred owls perched
- along the wooded edges of the creek.
- In the winters of night, their soft flight gives no warning to the little beasts they harvest from winter
- fields. Just a terrifying flare of wings, the stun of talons driven home. Death descends in silence,
- punctures life's fragile bubble, bears the body off for food, sudden, simple, done. Bird of darkness,
- when you come for me, surprise me in the smother of your wings.
- Play no cat games, but strike the blow both hard and true. Carry me where you will and swallow me, hair,
- hide, and bones complete. Thank you. Thank you.
- Thank you. Our final reader is Anya Peterson-Royce. She's a very accomplished lady. She's been with
- us for more than 10 years, I think. She's a very vivacious, warm personality. She has been a ballerina
- with some success. She is now a professor of anthropology
- a very quick-witted and funny person to be around. Anya? Some success in many entries, I might add.
- Thank you, Helen. Some of these poems are new, some of them are old. Most of them come from things that I
- as an anthropologist or as a dancer. The first one is Lizard Summons, and you need to know about datura
- candida. It's a plant of the nightshade family, all parts of which are poisonous. And it's used to promote
- visions. Lizard Summons. Sleeping where sorcery sings datura dream words that bind you to your lizard
- self. Your black forked tongue darts
- Probing for damp, sides heave in the glare of sun. Invisible against the bare grass, you call the bones
- of the ancestors, wait. Slit eyes, drunk, white, like the trumpet bell promise of oblivion. Summoned,
- they come, muttering, tongues clacking, gray with dust. Words pierce your body, long ago evil blossoms
- like fire blooms in your mind.
- Datura white, the chill of moonlight wakes you. Fire-burned ash all around you barren like whispers
- of bone dust. Lizard track into the grass. Next one is in a requiem in memory of a man that I have worked
- with for many years in southern Mexico. He was a healer.
- becoming an ancestor in memory of Tafelie Healer. You died without me. You slipped away, hand in hand
- with the sweet virgin who called you from your first vision. The nine days of prayers had passed when
- I heard. Your flower body already lifted up, your image on the altar in its place. My photo, capturing
- you fresh from this shower in your Calvin Klein t-shirt,
- Your face keeps me company, your ancestor face. A candle flame tricks a smile, and I smile too, while
- my heart grieves. I sent you armloads of flowers of the wild, white, and fragrant, green, and fresh,
- nourishment for your journey, and candles to catch your soul. I have walked with you these 40 days,
- my friend, hearing your voice, feeling your touch, willing my hummingbird
- He gave me the hummingbird as my totem. So that was that. The next two are from a year ago when I was
- in Huchita and I was there during Holy Week. So the first one is on Good Friday.
- Ready with flowers, three saints have traveled their separate ways in fits and starts through dusty
- streets. The white sun strips the softness from them. From the crowd that follows, sinew and sweat,
- dust streaked faces, the pilgrims hunt shade under rooftops, trees, umbrellas, are drawn by the drama
- of a son and his mother. As helpless as the beloved disciple, they witness
- He lifted high the virgin of sorrows, sees her son bowed under the weight of the cross. Her tears flow
- down the cheeks of the crowd. As brooding as the sun, the silence. No children chatter, no dogs bark.
- The weeping soundless. Now they march again to the certainty of death.
- evening of Good Friday in the same place. And you need to know there's a word in Zapotec Perelele. It's
- a Zapotec word for a water bird, which is common in this part of Mexico. It's wild, but it allows itself
- to be tamed by one person. When the person dies, the bird sings a piercing song made up of cascading
- and descending notes. Good Friday.
- The glass-painted coffin looms above the altar, seems to fill all the space in the small chapel. Its
- sweet burden lies hidden, wrapped in black and silver. He draws us. His flowered body bathes us, washes
- away sorrow. Falling notes of a berry lily, like the rain of the water wind, sing his life.
- People have died this year who were important to me. So I seem to have picked a number of poems that
- talk about that. This is one. I'm a young man who didn't die this year, but several years ago in the
- same place in Mexico. Anatolio. Just three days ago I met you, Anatolio of the children. Young ones
- clinging to your hands, others hiding shyly in the folds of your trousers. Today those children wash
- your cough
- their tears, as each in turn passes by and signs the cross. Your eyes are closed, the marks still visible
- where flesh met steel and concrete. The boys especially loved you. Hernan and Pancho hold each other,
- their grief echoing loudly in the shed turned chapel. Sister Estela tries to read the prayers, but loss
- robs her of a voice, and we all cry with her.
- is restless on my lap. Almost blind, the wails and sobs fill her world of shadows. She twists her face
- close to mine and wipes my tears with one small hand. Orphans and caretakers, friends and all the priests
- in Huchitan, weighed down by candles and flowers, the steamy heat of late afternoon and grief that nails
- us breathless to these old metal chairs.
- A rag-tag gathering we are, soaking up last glimpses before you disappear into the white satin of the
- coffin. And we are left to trace your face in the sands of our imagination. Like Helen I travel to.
- I don't have quite so many tonight. This one comes from my visit to Berkeley, which is my hometown.
- Berkeley streets. Lean frame propped against worn red brick. He pulled a thin jacket around himself,
- hunched into it, jammed his hands in the pockets. A sentinel, a messiah warrior space warped to this
- shabby corner. His eyes scanned passersby, the rest of him immobile. He would propel himself straight,
- hold out one hand, ask, would you have any change?
- You have a nice day, he'd say, and rest his body again. Move to keep warm, he seemed to decide. I heard
- the pain in his bones as he left the wall support, moving with a stiff-kneed walk of disintegrating
- joints. He found a sunny corner, searched his pockets, then battered Walkman on. He moved to music I
- couldn't hear and smiled, Fred Astaire in silver Nike.
- For all creatures whose freedom has been taken away. Bear. In a pink flowered sundress, a small brown
- bear jumped rope. Leather straps bound her muzzle or she might have smiled. She took her bows to applause
- and children's squeals, sawdust and spotlights, spun sugar candy and caramel corn.
- A world away from green cedar boughs and needle-covered moss. But a reprieve from the dirty straw matted
- metal cage. Blackness unrelieved by stars. Her own dank smell of despair. The Circus. Four small tigers
- the color of straw. Shabby reflections of their Bengal brothers peer anxiously from their wagon.
- The roar of Parisian traffic surrounds them. The tent is struck folded away. The lone elephant snuffles
- to herself in her darkened van. Cleaning the tiger cage is the last chore before the circuit slips away
- to the next stop on the second class circuit. The keeper moves among his charges. The oldest tiger,
- a veteran, lifts his head and snarls a warning as if remembering his youthful, fierce,
- The keeper does not pause. The smallest tiger whiskers tense, pads past the open door, stops,
- peers out, backs away. A close call, the freedom that beckoned for an instant. Better to practice his
- roars and pedestal leaps, waiting for wringling brothers scouts.
- Lemontour Beach, two snowy egrets in the sea damp air, legs stretched behind imperfect arabesques, dancers
- frozen in impossible rachetes, breastbones parting the air for their feathery
- all here and to share this wonderful event with us. It's been a pleasure, too, to have these wonderful
- women to be companions with as we write. Now I'd like to ask all the poets to come up, please. What's
- happening? We would like, at this time, especially today,
- all of you and all of us, but especially Tonya and Helen. For 30 years of keeping this group together,
- that is something impressive.
- This is really lovely. This is really lovely. Thank you. And now we have a reception. There is food.
- Please join us. Just one, two small things. One, a sort of thank you into space for all those who traveled
- with us during the 30 years and are in other places writing other things. We really had a wonderful
- companionship, didn't we?
- And really, a special thank you tonight to Kara up there in the sound and light. She has done so well.
- Thank you, thank you.