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
