Marjorie Rommel ------ four poems

Think of it!

How musicians hold sound

inside their heads;

how they rev it up, pour it out––

a temperature inversion

blasted into the balconies.

What if you could see

Rachmaninof’s Variations

shimmering before you,

Ed Meyer raising havoc

with Giovanni Bottesini’s

Concerto in B Minor––

music made at this moment,

tweaked from the bridge

of a double bass, plucked

from the beard of the man

with the violin? 

What if you could see

the fat notes rising, rowdy

corpuscles careening

through the veins of his arm

and into the concert hall

––a tapestry richer than

anything Croesus owned.

Wouldn’t it change your life?

Think how music slides into

our bodies, funnels down

through our intricately

folded ears––how we

cradle it deep inside––

and when the concert ends,

carry it into the rainy streets:

A hot front rising.

            ––for Stewart Kershaw

                with thanks and love

The heart of the beet is black

Each fall in the Skagit where roadside

farms form oases among flat brown fields

stretched to the horizon, beets come out of

the winter ground bedraggled as bag ladies

gone to moss, their goblin faces suffused

with wine––dark knobs piled in hills that

spill out over tire-patterned soil and rain-

wet roads. Where storms wash the dirt away

they glow like coals, like the red spot on Jupiter.

Choose one. Wipe off the mud, weigh it

in your hand, assess its volume, its density.

In these round vaults, Earth keeps her darkest

secrets. Cut top to bottom, held up to light,

each slice reveals a stained glass window,

flying buttresses, a bloody aurora. The beet is no

valentine. Its heart is so red it is almost black.

––Seattle Weekly Produce Calendar (revised 1/1/13)

The heart of the beet is black

Each fall in the Skagit where roadside farms

form oases among flat brown fields that stretch

to the horizon, beets come out of the winter ground

bedraggled as bag ladies gone to moss, goblin faces

suffused with wine, dark knobs piled in mountains 

over rich soil intricately tire-patterned out onto wet

roads. Where rain washes the dirt away, they glow 

like coals, like the red spot on Jupiter. Choose

one. Weigh it in your hand, test it for volume &

density – this is the vault where Earth keeps her

dark secrets. Cut top to bottom & held up to light

a slice reveals rich-stained windows, flying

buttresses, a bloody aurora. The beet is no

valentine. Its heart is so red it is almost black.

Submitted 3/28/19 to Seattle Weekly Produce Calendar

Hanna Raskin <hraskin@seattleweekly.com

The grandmothers go to war

            for Katherine

We are the strong ones.

Bumptious, blue-haired,

rip-handed and dangerous

in defense of our grandchildren.

We are an untapped Power,

furious, disciplined, manipulative

and sly––lessons learned

in a half century of service

to quarrelsome men far more

gimlet-eyed than the children they

would leave us to keen at night,

and we won’t have it!  We will not

lie quiet while generations are turned

in a moment to scattered ash.

We have nothing to lose

but our grandchildren:

Send us.

Send us instead.

We will shroud ourselves

in burqas, cast down our angry eyes,

pack ferocity around ample waists,

under lymphedemic arms,

strap books to our cottage cheese

buttocks, poems to our fulsome thighs.

Unobtrusive as ghosts, we will slip over

the false borders and into the strongholds

of those who would enslave us.

We are old hands at this.

  

Black ships laden with riches, we will

bring to our sisters the perfume

of knowledge. We will bring them bright

mirrors to show them their beauty.

We will show them the strengths

we share with our daughters.

We will show them our scars,

and invite them to join us, for this

is a holy war fought by all women.

Together, we are invincible.

In the names of the children,

we are relentless and unafraid.

Poets Against the War (online)

Poets Against the War

Poem of the Day 3/27/03

Alcala de Henares, Madrid, Spain 2004

Mothers against War (online) 2005

Grandmothers Against War

(online) 2005

In my favorite field

All summer in this field only cattle,

& grass & the heron, & buttercups scattered

like buttons tossed on a double bed;

the cows content to be what they are,

so many dark planets drifting outward

at morning, west & inward at dusk.

But in November the sky turns lead

& the creek runneth over, far over,

 covering the grass & at twilight

the farmer goes about in his boat

among the flat gray of the barns,

the gray silk rain & the cattle standing

chest deep in gray water, shivering

with cold. He rows steady among them,

herding them, reaching far over

to lay his hand on them, soothe

them onto higher ground. Even

when they have gone, sometimes,

the farmer rows out alone, the yard dog

sitting up at attention before him,

& looks down through the flood 

to the green hair of summer

waiting, moving slow, & the buttercups,

so many quick yellow stars.

In this final hour there is no sound

but boatwash, the hull creaking,

oars in the oarlocks, the dog

in the stern, his short sharp bark,

a lantern shining over water

in the early dark.

An earlier version appeared in National Wetlands Newsletter 2003