Wednesday, January 20, 2016

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

No comments:

Post a Comment