Monday, July 8, 2013

Vermont Woman (For my children who wanted me to write something about myself.)


Vermont Woman

I am the blue-green edge
Between the cloud and mountain.
The fog rolled from the dark valley,
Pressed against summer hills.
The streams running silver over their stones, bearing
Light and clearness to the smallest grain of color
Between the shadows of slim, quick trout.
The quiver of bird song in afternoon meadows where
Seeded blooms droop in the yellow haze and the fox
Smiles over her shoulder as she moves away,
Weightless and tail straight.
I am people in celebration, music and dance
Under thunder rolling, warming the ground
While warm sheets wash winter grey,
I am plowed land,
Fresh-cut hay in windrows,
Tender corn in clean aisles,
The pear tree’s swarm, a fuzzy, golden cell of the hive.
I am the face of a milkweed flower,
Pregnant with vulva mauve mandalas.
I sleep naked under the rising moon,
Taste grain in the field, warm and nutty,
Stand where the continent slides under the sea,
Salt on my tongue.
I am my grandmother’s hands,
Soft and brown and wrinkled--working hands and holding.
I am the flowers they have grown, the food made, the babies
Held against her, humming and rocking to their fiddle touch.
I am the clean sweat of your labor
And the sigh in your sleep.
The ache in the throat of sorry,
The calm of death after a struggle
And the warmth in the crease of an infant’s neck.
I am the curve of a girl’s cheek,
The tug and red of her menses,
The soft, dark night she walks.
I am the young man’s dreams
And the old man’s memories,
The liquid of tears and desire
And of milk letting from the turgid nipple-
As smooth as sex and warm skin and
The shine in a lover’s eye.
I am a bridge, a white flag of surrender,

The wrinkles in the damp sheets of lovers,
The pun in your dream, your first step,
The magic of dragonflies over the pond,
The gravel in your knee,
The ragged edges of anger
The question behind hatred and fear.
I am the soil of blue slate under the mountain
And the yellow sandstone of lake cliffs.
I taste of grit and strength,
Smell of new bread and death,
Rich for corn and wheat,
Thin for juniper and cedar.
I am the cattle and deer and round woodchuck.
I wear rows of elms like a bone necklace,
I am the sweet in a bud of red clover
And I am its long, noduled roots.
I am the choreography of a mare and her foal.
The dance of the crane.
I am the tang of raspberries
And the bitter of pine in the darkling wood.
The faded periwinkle of the cabbage moth
And the sting of a wasp
The heart-spring of peepers in May
And the insistence of cicadas in August.
I am the up and down rhythm of the French in my grandfather’ voice,
A guide for my daughters, a sister to my friends,
The first woman of my sons
I run through the chambers of your heart
And flow in the rhythm of the vein.
I am the brave in a mother’s good-by smile and in her unshed tears.
I am the wish for you to walk in light,
Holding the hands of one another,
Tasting joy and feeling what there is to feel.

Friday, March 30, 2012

Don't Look Here For Lines And Meters


Don’t Look Here for Lines and Meters

My poems are measured by the meter of the heart,
The rhythm of seasons.
If you count the lines between the spaces,
They probably won’t be even.

Perfection doesn’t ride on my lines.
My lines tangle like nerve jangles,
Are woven like a fisherman’s net.
The voice breaks with the weight of lead sinkers,

And iridescent scales shining in the sun.

Planting Christmas Trees


Planting Christmas Trees

Rows of little pointy trees,
Hundreds of ‘em under an August sky.
Push the spade into the
Tough sod,
Showing a dark wedge of earth,
Then plunk one in
And press it down snug
With your boot.

They have the best view here;
Looking over the mountains
Toward blue and bluer.

They’re gonna be chopped off like cabbages
But they don’t care,
They just spread out
Those spidery roots,
And take a drink.
Reach up those little spruce fingers
To the sky,
And settle in,
Tasting sun.

Tipi Kitchen


Tipi Kitchen

Rumford tins
And herbal teas,

Ball jars, grain, honey,
Olive oil and spices

On a plank shelf—
Blackened pots and fire-pit,

Earthen teapot, jugs of spring water,
Crickets, and the wind in the trees.

The Ride


The Ride

In March the wind knocks
From the night its low
Train mourn
And the house shakes
Until the stove pipe
Rattles its rusty teeth
And I hang to the edge
Of my bed for the bucking
Ride into spring;
Not the spring of your dreams
But a common nightmare
Of trampled woodpiles
And mud, close cabin madness,
Waking from hibernation
Wearing stiffness,
Thumbed seed catalogs
And a hunger for
That slice of green,
A tonic for the bitter kernel
Resting at my liver.

Monday, March 26, 2012

Mountain Home


Mountain Home

That husband I left gave me Ripton.
This farm daughter of the wide Champlain Valley
Had viewed mountains from afar.
To be sheltered by them was womb-like.
Living there,
I knew I’d be caught
In shadow.

To swim in the dark eye of the mountain
Was a baptism.
Numbness to everyplace before.
Nowhere so cold, but cleansing,
Like a spring storm cleans the woods
Of weak bones.

My new allegiance
Fought in driven forays,
Falling down the winding road to the valley
Again and again.
Always coming back,
Uphill.

You know Who You Are...


You Know Who You Are

I stand at the gate of the high-school
Nordic race and my mind is reeling after
Overhearing an aside from the guidance
Counselor to a star parent.
“I didn't know he had it in him.”

My son. Sixteen and lanky.
A junior with falling grades.
He works late nights as a cook and I,
The welfare mom, work two part-time jobs,
A full-time student and mother of four in
A house with no running water.

I stand there with a taste of gall on my bitten tongue,
What do you know of spirit and sacrifice,
Of small, desperate Christmases where the children's
Forgiveness is the gift in the darkness?
And his father lies somewhere mixing alcohol
With antidepressants, lost in a post-Vietnam Era fog.

And I am the ache in the throat of sorry
For a boy coming into manhood alone but
For the kind-hearted coach he runs for,
Breathing the frozen air on the mountain,
Skating free.

Someday I'll come out of the closet of poverty where
Dignity is silence and a woman stands alone;
Cold-footed and invisible in a dark coat
With ripped pockets where her red-tipped
Fingers pretend comfort.