summer morning - June 1997
morning came like a clean white apron
starched and sweet smelling
soft pillow of air
smooth sheet of sky
threads of bird song embroidering the trees
summer 1997
serene wall spread with golden light
flat, quiet
then suddenly shadows
gray smudges flickering
too fast to see, shapeless
fly across the screen
mysterious
in the yard
they fill the tops of the trees
when the door opens the twittering chaos
fills the room
dropped like rain
pelting the ear
a thick cloud of high pitched static
staccato like flamenco feet
black birds
their entire community arrived from somwhere
beaking about the brown leaves
then they lift as one
gone
summer 1996
#1
early morning dew sings a silver song
along the skin of the black clad branches
raised arms supplicating, celebrating
and the tree dances, so slowly you can only see a pose
the sun sings back in blue tones laid at the feet of the dancer
#2
All the month of June she sat
eyes sealed as though in prayer
turning each day like the shadow on a sun dial
so still, that my daughter asked if she were dead.
Then, one morning as we got into the car
we saw there were two small yellow beaks at the edge
of the nest.
It was our morning joy, and our pride
that our porch provided a safe corner
for this common miracle to unfold before us.
Shadows, however, flew around the edges
of this small pleasure, as with every other one that I have ever known,
shadows of memory, experience, foreboding.
Daily I waited and worried that the crows would come.
There was that day I saw the gray dove fall from the sky
and the diving crows pecking red holes in the gray breast.
And the memory, forty years old, of the naked hatching
fed by eye dropper, raised all spring, and in the minute of its release
casually killed by the neighbor's cat:
I could have kept it in its cage,
safe on the enclosed porch of our brick row home in the city.
My parents made me let it go.
A family of birds had nested in the bush by the window
waiting for their own.
We all, birds and people, cried out, stunned, as the cat
trotted briskly away, baby bird in its teeth, back broken.
My daughter and I checked the nest whenever we went in or out
and pointed out the treasure to anyone who came to visit,
and one day we saw three small heads and open beaks
and heard the squeaks
and even saw the mother robin drop the food into the waiting mouths.
It rained all week, a gentle rain, with soft gray clouds like the breast of doves.
One morning there was thunder with the rain,
and the crows had come.
First they were in the yard down the street
and they had something down
in the grass
Then they were on the neighbor's roof
and in the trees in my yard
a dozen, or even more.
Now, the nest is empty.
No evidence of the crime.
A family of sparrows lived there, and now they are gone.
In the news a plane went down
and all the people on it drowned.
And a woman in Olympic Park, Atlanta, Georgia,
was blown up by a bomb, as she stood beside her daughter.
My daughter is sleeping. Just her soft face peeking
from the folds of the quilt.
I checked on her this morning, as I sat listening to the crows
and reading the newspaper,
drinking a cup of coffee
on the porch, with the heavy skies about the open again
and send the rain
and the empty nest in the corner
and all the mystery.
Inevitability,
Breakfast, rain, crows, children, gray skies ready to open,
sparrows in a nest
and the flickering black wings of death.
poem 4/16/98
4 O'Clocks On the Oval
In place of yellow boutonnieres for bachelors
scattered across the green,
the slanting smile of sun cut above the grass,
beneath the trees,
and set the round white heads alight
like small glowing airy planets.
Heaven breathed and blew out some candles,
set a few winged craft aloft,
moved a few seconds off the clock,
kept the time turning.
Instead of snow,
fragrant petals mingled in the air with the feathery flyers
and yellow dust that gilded the common ordinary stuff of day,
all to be blown away.
Jan. 1998
A Weight in the Wind
It sits up there, a solid weight
on the top most branch of the blackened winter tree,
a thin branch like a line of ink against the gray flannel ky,
like a black hair blown across a muffler
which the wind's hand snatches, stretches, and pulls.
The tree tosses, trying to shake something from her hair.
Effortlessly it clings, tenacious, unafraid;
it cannot fall;
nothing can shake it,
black like death and heavy, winged
sure of itself and high above all other things
above brick buildings,
above the tallest tree,
the black crow.
Sacred Groves-12/16/97
frost on the tracks
ice on the water
geese with voices like ours
a black hand reaching up from the earth
frost lace on a green cuff
black grasping shadow
holding on through winter
Sun - god and goddess, king and queen, ruler of the land
casts gold at the feet of the peasants who labor
worshippers who journey
sick of body or soul, who come to be healed
golden ribbons wrap the package
golden frames bind the view
golden light brings life to dirt, majesty to common plot
silver and gold to plain cloth and base metal
golden morning penetrates the cold dark hearth/the heart
brings clarity to a sleep darkened mind
takes the bitter bite from damp and painful night
gives the geese their voices and makes the birds to sing
and so I come to worship, morning service at the sacred grove
to pray to cleanse my soul of drops of bitter gall,
pools of black despair, black crow complaints, the dross
of impurity accumulated through 24 hours of twilight living
offered up in the sacred grove, sins of the day
given to the petitioner, the perfect spiral of opened pine cones
fresh sweet air to breathe
a new mind like the silver iced and clean swept face of the bright pond
myriad miracles hidden from the eyes of ordinary hours
Links to other sites on the Web
work site
National Design Institute Aug. 1998
Elem. School Art Room
host site
family
school where I teach
© 1997 jo_ann_w@hotmail.com
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