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.