My Favorite--A Sonnet

"The Beating Wings"
for Kristen
who died of leukemia at age 12

She sat, a scarecrow in a slit-back gown:
Translucent skin, her fingers stretched like nails.
She reached to me beside the silver rails.

And when she turned, her head bobbed up and down;
The blood shone on her teeth, like web spun 'round.
The thread, that pain, it wrapped her eyes--once pale--
And pupils swallowed blue in one dark veil.
I watched--she seemed to speak--there was no sound.

Kristen, I remember when we saw the birds
In cases, stuffed, their eyes unblinking glass;
An egret, its wings like crystal, seemed to rise.
You spoke its name, I leaned to catch the word;
It was yourself you called--Oh, you flew past--
I saw the beating wings behind your eyes.

My Own Cancer Poem

"Woman on a Cliff"

I am a woman standing on a cliff.
Wind rises from below,
from the dark and far crevasse.
Upon my face and hair it sings
blowing out my scarf like wings.
I cannot see the bottom of the cliff.
Rocks and slopes and trees
reach down in shades of gray and green.
And if they form a bridge
they stay unseen.
But I'm not frightened now
to stand here at this dizzy height.
I look up to the Summit where
the clouds half cover crystal peaks
and sunrise turns the snow to light.
I am a woman standing on a cliff.
At any time my feet could slip
and pull me fast
upon the razor tip.
But, oh, the view!
The view is worth the coldest risk.

YOU USED TO TELL ME STORIES

for my father-in-law, the pilot

You used to tell me stories.
The Lexington in the Pacific:
a tar-spattered deck,
seaplanes chained in rows,
gray against the dark, dark waves.
And you were young:
you strode toward the cockpit,
patches on your flight jacket
like embroidered bullet holes,
sunlight tapping messages
on your goggles.

You used to tell me stories.
Sitting in the chair,
the album open to your picture
in a khaki uniform,
your face angled sharp as a salute.
"We landed in the water
to fish out pilots,
propellers stirring mist
like a mirage.
Sometimes we were too late;
I saw pilots wrapped
in parachutes
like mushrooms over stems.
And I wondered why we hauled them in;
back from the burial."

Christmas I opened a notebook,
and held my pen, waiting,
until it wavered in the air.
Father,
you looked at me,
through mushroom-faded eyes,
and I saw
that you were tired
of padded chairs
and an arm too frail
to hold a throttle.
I saw a pilot downed
and I wanted to pull you out
of the white canopy
and the twisted lines.

WHITE TRASH

He called me White Trash.
He, with his puffy face
paler than mine.
I glowered back at him
from the bench in the corner,
my eyes blue windows
(could he only see)
open to a spacious house
with white lace curtains.

He found me in a tent,
beer cans stacked against the canvas.
He dragged my mother
(in her nightie)
to the car's front seat.
I sat in back, thirteen,
my hand clutching a crucifix
until it burned my palm.

How the gold cross gathered light
when I held it to the window!
Rays danced red with fire,
strong enough to burn the tent away,
the patrol car,
the station with its bench,
and the mushroom face

of the man who called me Trash.

ROSES AND COLORED GLASS

Who put this ladder in the dark? I fell
on its sharp corner, cried and bruised my knee.
The tear that ripped my dress like anxious hands
is not for gentlemen like you to see.
You need not lift me up, your gloves are white--
they'll blacken with the fragments of the night.
What's that? You help a lady when she falls?
Such words! You do not come from London, sweet.
I wonder where you grew--but you're still young.
I've aged ten years for one within these streets.
My home? White halls and lacy curtains--that?
I have none. But your arms are strong. Your hat
was made at Buckley's. It shall be my roof.
We'll walk in mud beneath the clinging mist
and I will think of roses and colored glass;
and wish my lips unpainted and unkissed.
My feet aren't tired, I could go on--past gate
and bridge--to fields where dew and moonlight mate.
But how I talk. That door, that empty hole;
yes, that's the place. I thank you for your time.
Don't blush. Your dinner party waits--go on.
You shouldn't stay so long across the line.
You want to help me? No. Your eyes, they bite.
I could not bear to see them in the light.

GRIEF DREAM
Weeping may last for the night,
but joy comes in the morning.
Psalm 30:5

I stand on a plain;
around me ashes hover
close to the ground.
There is no wind to stir them.
There is no sun.
Ahead I see a yellow arc,
thin, like a crack
in a smokey lantern face.
Sparks wing to it
in shades of saffron, gold--
leap against the glass
toward sound, speaking words
like windowsill and eagle;
splitting melody and light
like a prism struck.
My feet pulse with rhythm,
wanting to join the dance.
But ashes cling.
I reach down, capture flakes,
open my palms.
Ashes clump together,

pale effigies
of Father, Mother, Brother;
all who have taken
their blood and presence
but have not left.
Let me go, I cry;
and the arc grows like dawn.

LEGACY

I. My grandmother's house stood
gray among the oaks,
stone walls with acorns
hidden in their cracks.
Against its waxy floors,
tables crouched on lions' feet
and the white walls
hung with masks.

Beneath the Yale plaque,
grandmother draped her Master's cape--
velvet tinged with red.
She spoke behind the vast desk,
blue eyes faded,
pink face faded, superior, thin.
She spoke my father's ignorance,
until my mother listened
and left him alone
one Christmas night.

At grandmother's party,
mother wore silk
beneath the chandelier.
She raised a goblet

crimson to her crimson lips,
and dropped it
at the herald
of her husband's death--
the phone's black cry.

On the rug, wine scattered
like my father's breath
loosened from his lungs.
They could not find the stains
woven in the tapestry.
Did they read the Bible
to my mother then?
Did she search it for a note,
pressed by father,
to one unwrinkled page

II. I hate this box they've left me,
with "Lonna's Old Things"
scrawled in black ink
across its cardboard side.
It molds in my cellar,
full of dead remembrances--
the plaque, the cape, the book.
They crisp like ashes in an urn.

I would rather have a living hand,
an eye I can remember--
gray as rainwater
against the slate
of my grandmother's house,
where the tables had saltcellars
purple on their tops,
and tiny glass spoons
to spread the crystals.

ELEGY FOR MY MOTHER

If I had been the first to find you there,
I would have padded softly through the snow.
Your window, lit by some unearthly glow,
Would draw me like a candle shining clear.
I would have, with my scarf or with my hair,
Rubbed ice from glass so I could watch you go.
Draped on the bed like a discarded bow,
Your flesh shot free your soul with joy, not fear.
But I was not the first. No! Strangers came
To desecrate the silence of your shrine.
With photos, badges, guns, they brought their shame
And wrapped you like a crinkled orange rind.
All that was left were ashes and a name;
Where was the mother that I longed to find?

DAUGHTER OF THE HOUSE

Now I know
why I come to this hotel,
to the Lady Bronston Room,
with its narrow pink bed.
Here I am Daughter of the House.
Though I pay,
though only for a weekend,
I chat with the managers,
walk among the rosebud halls,
compose my poems
beside the sleeping cat.

Here I lie in bed alone,
virginity recaptured.
Even the Victorian picture
of a woman holding moonlit blooms
beside a carved tree
cannot make me miss romance.

At breakfast,
in the sunlight-spackled lounge,
they pour tea into my rosey cup.
I watch the dusky face
of a clock, whose numbers
seem to mock my game.
I was never Sunny's child.
Though she bore me, gave me a name,
I was the mother.
I held her parchment hand
when they gathered her
into the ambulance
because she would not drink water.

I was nobody's daughter.

Tom made me a ceramic alligator--
I loved its shade of green.
Pity it could not speak to me
through its chipped mouth
when its maker unmade himself.
Was that the gift of a Father?

MUSIC AT THE STREETCORNER

I walk these streets,
anonymous as mist
beneath star ceilings.
annonymous as mist.
My silent dog pulls me
toward the shadow of a hill
curved like a hand.
Darkness never frightens me,
or the small light of stars
on an estuary, or the lampglow
on the ridges of a leaf.

The houses here shelter in hills,
night rampant in their yards;
howl of coyote, leap of deer.
From a respectful corner,
I peer at the nearer home.
Someone plays music
beneath a chandelier.
Curtains hide the player,
how he spreads fingers on the keys,
wrists pale beneath black sleeves.
He glances at the woman beside him;
she poses herself on the piano bench,
a listener in silk and pearls.
Does she tilt her eyes toward him?
Does he lift his forehead, pause?
Or pound the notes that spark
like fireflies through the room?
Perhaps he plays alone.
I will not know--nor can he see
me lift my unlit face

to silver chords.

BRINK

Once again I stand
on the brink of this hill--
the last suburban streets behind.
Hard to believe that the black canyon--
slopes on every side,
with a faint path at the bottom,
scrub at my feet--
is surrounded by city.
I see the distant lights of Poway
glint among the mountains.
Between them, the white sea of San Diego,
and the freeway,
bulwarks this uneven land.
I mark the glow of headlights
above the western heights.
Still, it is dark enough--
I do not know what watches
behind the chapparal, or where the path winds.
Wind rises, insect sounds retreat,
and of a sudden comes the urge
to scramble down the brink,
hide among coyotes,
surround myself with this rare night.

ON MEETING A PRINCE

Once a prince
arrived in a white plane.
I stood behind the police line,
held onto my hat,
as reporters pushed against me
like a strong wind.
I remember the white uniform
with its gold Navy braid
and the Prince's white-toothed smile.
He didn't see me,
though I stood quietly by his side.
I wanted to reach over the rope,
touch his arm,
see if it was made like mine.

Was he enchanted,
like the old tales?
Would he bestow emeralds,
turn me into a princess
with a kiss?
He strode toward the terminal,
where women hung out the windows.
He would dress
in a private room,
wear the green flight suit
like my husband's,
test the new helicopter,
fill out a checklist,
and fly away again.

I wondered what was in a name.
Smith or Windsor
belong alike to breath.
Content with annonymity,
I twirled in my best dress,
tipped the hat from my head,
curtsied to the sky.
A single gull arched once
against the afternoon sun
and headed out to sea.

DRAGONFLY

The first hot day in the Philippines,
I wade to the park
through sultry afternoon.
A boy stands by the gate;
in one fist he holds
a black thread
tethered to a dragonfly.
The insect, huge and iridescent green,
buzzes above his head,
tilting golden wings and eyes.

I stop in the murky glare,
in my race across the world,
pulled by an absent husband,
tied like the creature to the boy--
lashed like a spinning toy.

Had I scissors,
could I cut the string?
Turn to the threshold of a home,
wait for my husband to return?
I hesitate awhile--
no scissors but my eyes--
walk past the liquid trees,
the boy, the plunging fly.

SPANISH ARCH

Air, cold on the porch,
lifts my face
to the night sky.
I lean over an iron rail,
beneath an archway's edge,
see an encircled moon.
Eucalyptus trees sway in the breeze
--awkward and beautiful
as primal dancers
under bushy masks.
The porch lamp whitens
the Spanish arch
like alabaster lit from within.
For a moment
I think it is a gate
I must enter--a gate
to the moon, the trees,
the silence of this night.

HYMN

My muscles mold themselves
to the porch wall.
My shoulder blades blend
with the whiteness of chipped paint,
with the streetlamp
above the shadowed hall.
When jets and cars
cease raving, I hear
the mockingbird's song.
Flute-like, vibrato,
it sweeps from tree to tree;
a bar of music
glowing in the lee
of a conductor's winged baton.
I could sleep all night
beneath the back-lit clouds.
And the singer
on the single, leaf-sprayed limb,
repeats, repeats the hymn.

HUMMINGBIRD

I thought it was a blossom,
red against the gray branch.
I saw it move; the warbling
no louder than the voice of wind
became a tune. It sang;
its beak like needles parting,
its face a scarlet mask--
a Chinese actor's, horned
and dragon-like against the scales
of its green breast. My daughter came
as I was watching; silent,
her head tipped upward,
eyes like blue cups
for filling. We stood, my hand
upon her hair, and listened
to the high-pitched call
of the hummingbird
in the first bare boughs of spring.

THE VEIL

Street lamps paint
the wood floor gold,
like the fringes of
a Moslem woman's veil.
The room is gauzy black:
there the silent clock,
the upturrned shoe,
the crumpled robe.
I step out of bed;
my gown puffing behind me.
At the window I place
hands on the cold glass.
Outside, an owl shrieks,
gliding close to the lawn.
It pauses, turns;
its eyes like twin moons
of Saturn, haloed by rings
from the street lamp.
I cannot see the moon
from my window,
or feel grass between my toes.
And I want to chase the owl,
rob it of its wings--
fly, fly to the
moon-topped trees
where branches bend
and drop like veils.

BLOSSOMS

"How far to the lodge?" I ask,
leaning out the window
of a rented car. An Englishman
in green Wellies and a wool cap
ambles toward me, a labrador frisking near.
I reach over glass and steel
for the narrow black head.
The dog does not wait for my hand;
she leaps, splattering mud
on window face and door,
on my forehead and pale sweater,
in the corner of my mouth.
I see the face of the Englishman,
the tongue and eyes of the dog,
and I want to kneel in three-inch muck,
embrace the lapping animal
until I'm covered with earth--
the gritty, tangy stuff I taste,
full of seeds, mingled with rainwater
and the prints of man and dog.
My husband, beside me, moves the car in gear.
We pass slowly; I wipe off my arm,
roll up the window,
and see two brown marks
like blossoms
grown upon the glass.

RINGBECK AFTER SUNSET

Down Ringbeck Road,
the sky's too violet
for this late hour.
Trees absorb black, the fields
darkest emerald. Light catches
in my pale sweater, lingering.
Passing Avenue Farm, I peer
into the window--
flowered china and pewter
line the dining room wall.
Two people, blurred
in my quick glance,
recline abstractly on the couch.
Past a barn, a hill
breaks open the air--
Lightning Cottage at the top,
Ringbeck stretched beneath it,
a ridge between the dales.
Above, below, bordered by copses,
they slope to the moors
and the last pink streamers.
Three lights,
one above another,
poke through the lower swales.
A strange glow
above the fading sunset
gleams a jagged patch.
It cannot be the moon--
perhaps a planet has risen
behind a cloud,
or a congregation of new stars.
I do not wait to see;
I hurry back Ringbeck
before the shadows melt together
and I am lost among them,
even my sweater
fading into the trees.

FOUNTAINS ABBEY
Psalm 24:9

I. Stone, white in the floodlights,
shapes a window. No stained glass
covers it, only the twilight sky--
golden blue, deeper than velvet,
space beyond stars.
Open the everlasting doors
and the King of Glory
shall come in.
Yes, He could come
throught that archway:
supported by pillars
seven stories high,
pinnacle-topped,
carved with crosses--
a blue-backed, watching eye.

II. I leave the lighted part of the abbey,
taped Gregorian chants fading into wind.
How did a monk feel,
walking among this too-high ruin,
law hung upon him
like his shadowed mantel,
like the silent walls?
A cowl must have hid his face,
except when the sun angled unexpectedly
through a morning window
and lit up his green eyes.
Did he let fall the hood,
long for the press of another warmth--
a woman's hand against his cheek?
I touch a column where he might have stood--
the sharpness of chipped stone
almost cuts my finger.

III. Here is the graveyard:
an iron fence around lichen-covered slabs.
They lean rudely together
like fallen angels,
no longer caring
for the order of pillars and doors.
In the corner is an open grave--
a stone coffin cut into grass,
hollow, dipped in darkness,
a rounded place for the head.
Is it for me?
I do not want to lie in it.
I do not want to wait until I'm dead
to touch grass and dirt,
to feel the same wind blow over me,
to see the same stone walls,
the same shadow against the sun.

IV. The wind has grown cold. I raise my collar
above my neck, place hands in pockets,
and walk back to the abbey.
In the middle of the altar I pause.
Above me is the window--
larger than a house, gaping,
black but for the stars.
O Lord of this ruined place,
do you want a sacrifice of me?
Shall I lie down
against this slab,
the little red and yellow squares of marble,
and wait for you?

V. I could not find a home here--
no, ribbed roofs and tunnels
curling into black-bushed trees
are not mine. Give me,
O severe Lord, whose Law
inhabits this place like stone,
give me a simple home.
Let it have
a wood-framed window facing east,
golden-backed and lined with heather.
For this,
I would lay upon your altar
my soul's crystal treasure
etched in this small poem.

MANOR BY THE RIVER NIDD

The river Nidd, black under the bridge,
slips over the edge of a dam.
Leaves, a wine bottle, and a sack of manure
stick on the stone molding.
Beeches gesture over the verge--
on the far side a turreted wall
lines an aging manor.
No one stands on its balcony
or in its three-tiered windows.

I think romance is dead.

Only in books and old poems
does the homeless girl wander
across the unsafe bridge
bordered on each side by rusted iron
to keep her from the river.

Only in myths does she brush past
the posted sign, timidly climb
the rutted drive
with its white rose fence
tangled in juniper.

In ancient tales alone
does the young lord wait,
arm on the knobby gate,
ready to bestow the task--
renewal of his ruined home
and his own white hand.

Even so, such places as this house
have the power to make one write;
the dark speech of mystery
like sooted chimneys against a cloud.

RAINBOWS

If I were a fairy,
I'd lie upon this wrinkled beach
and dive for colored stones.
The river glows in rain;
I see brown rocks on bottom sand.
The rocks are plain--
I could brighten them
with my two rings:
the silver one, from college,
engraved with my degree and year;
the wedding ring, with diamonds,
in which I sometimes see
rainbows of red and yellow
--the purple is hard to find.
I could hold the circlets
cold against my palm,
then fling them in a glistening arch
through air to stream.
Would fairies contemplate
the usefulness of rings--
adornments for winter hearths,
or knockers nailed on doors?
Or would they merely let them sink
--as I cannot seem to do--
metallic lanterns lit
among the liquid stones.

"The Moon"

--For Lossengondiel--

The full moon
eclipsed last night
above the mountain range

No one had told me
and I wondered what was wrong
as I drove up the rim from the city

The moon looked pink and dark
its shine gone
as if captured
and my heart felt the loss

Curious people
pulled their cars to the side
where the mountain falls six thousand feet
beyond the metal barrier
down boulders, canyons, and brush
to the lowlands and the city lights

At my house
on a summit
I climbed the stairs and watched
the moon's white edge
return slowly
until
whole again
it filled the forest
with light and shadow

trees and rocks melded together
like elves dancing

"Points of Light"

When my life is too busy
and exhaustion holds me down
like weights,
I walk outside
into the forest
and look up.

Dark trees
like sentinels
encircle the night sky
with stars between their branches
and the wind blows down
from points of light.

"Wilderness"

The wind brushes against the green ferns.
Pine needles blanket the ground.
Round, split boulders emerge from the soil.
The aroma of forest pine
swifts through the air on a breeze.

Oh Lord, I stand in awe of your beauty
expressed in the wilderness around me.

An everlasting valley of plants
roll like the waves of an ocean.
Chipmunks race through the hills
stopping to wag their tails.
Birds Chirping: High, Low,
Soft and Loud;
echo between the trees.

"Oh Lord," my spirit cries,
"How majestic you are."

Gold sap drips from the trees
to paint the lower bushes.
The wind flows through my hair
and whispers in my ear.
In the background a woodpecker
laborously pounds at a faraway tree.

Thank you, Jesus, for the peace and serenity.
My spirit yearns to know more of you.

A windy trail pushes
through the rugged terrain.
A spring finds its path
through patches of
dense, lively ferns.
White, translucent, shape-changing clouds
inherit the sky.

Glory to you, God
from the heavens and the earth.
Your creation is a sweet blessing.
Thank you for the wilderness.