The Opening \ Elephant

Nancy:  Remnants of ice flows (blocks sometimes several feet thick) may still be there in April, buried in the greening marsh grass.

The Opening

The ice is barely breaking free

on the bay, floes stacking themselves

on ledges at low tide, volumes

of winter piled haphazardly, as children

might have left them, untidied

and abandoned,

as I say, this has just happened

but already my mind has chosen

to superimpose the flash of light, of

open water on the marsh, on the

bay, the gabble of oldsquaws in the dark,

sorting out, pairing up,

yes, already I am leaping (as I did

once from ice to ice across the flood tide)

leaping to the first pea tendril

the heavy green massy tomato plants

starred with flowers, a chair

in the shade,

perfume of hay and nicotiana,

all this because it is coming

because piece by piece

the ice is tumbling free, floating

free and the sharp cold air is rich

with open marsh and mud.

Alan:  Akshobhya, the Buddha of the East, whose emblem is the elephant...  I’d like to thank Margaret Brooks and family for the story that seeded this poem.

Elephant

                      om vajra akshobhya hum

Ponderous, plantigrade,

the elephant sways and shuffles

in the dawn processional:

polished, gold-tipped, inevitable

amid the crowds and chanting.

Just in front, a small child

walks, proud and singular;

then trips, sprawling, arms

delicate as lily stems

flung out, helpless.

The beast, unable

to change stride,

cups an immense foot

and touches the earth

in two places, bridging

her fragile bones,

walks on, imperturbable.

She springs up, laughing

and crying, the tiny glass

bangle flashing on her wrist,

a mirror of blue water,

a circle unmarred.

Almanac Straight Bay March \ Misspoken

Nancy:  March storms come with this consolation:  March snows disappear faster than those of January and the days are coming when we don't have to backpack the groceries in.

Almanac            Straight Bay            March

Sun slides down the north slope of Stone Man Hill;

early risers find live coals in the stove.

If a man’s willing to stumble through drifted snow

he has the right to hoe the flats for clams.

What do you want to eat?  What are you willing to carry

on your back?

Wind slicks all white.  The dogs never ran their

investigations; I come home never having left.

The calendar and the woodpile disagree.

The dogs believe in omnipotence.  They ask to

roll in the grass.

Clouds open and let us see the face of the moon,

23,000 miles brighter.

The moon pulls the sea over the road and out of the bays.

Some almanacs ignore this; some make a brief reference:

Moon, full, perigee.

Riddle: how can a woman of moderate height reach

into treetops and stroll over the garden fence?

Answer: the woman goes where her snowshoes take her.

Looking in my backpack for food, newspapers, daffodils.

As for buds, I defer to grouse.  When they gather in the

birches I believe in change.

Winter storm warning.  What am I willing to carry

on my back?

Alan: Age was cruel to my mother, and so it may be to me.  Perhaps all we can do, in the immortal words of the Dead Dog Café Comedy Hour, is “Stay calm. Be brave. Wait for the signs.”

Misspoken

Fumbling in half-light, I tell you

I’m going to take the mail up the road

and you laugh.  It’s “trash,” not “mail”;

today’s Friday, the day I take the trash up the road.

This happens when I’m tired or distracted.

My mind shuffles the deck and pulls some random noun,

or what I see bumps what I’m thinking, as in

“How’s that new clock you’re reading.”

Maybe some day I’ll be like my mother,

for whom language is a sea of flotsam she swims through,

desperately fending off or grabbing whatever strikes her.

Maybe some day I’ll say, “I think I’ll scrub the kitchen floor,”

when what I mean is, “I love you.”

Maybe I’ll say that today.

Storm \ Kestrel

Nancy:  In March, when we're getting eager for spring, we may, instead, have the worst of the winter storms.

Storm

Say:       storm

Say:       the wind reminded us of gray wolves

               these wolves came out of the north

               running

               on long legs

Say:       storm

Say:       wind, snow, cold, and the chief of these,

               wind

               running out of the north

From this follows the house shaken

the rafters shaken

the cedar sills shaken

the teacups shaken from the shelves on the north wall

broken

From this it follows that the shingles

let in the snow

the windows let it in

the door let it in

on the floor, snow, and a drift on the bed

From this follows cold.

The smoke will not face a wind running out of the north;

fire will not throw itself in the face of the wolves.

Thirty hours.

Say:        quiet

                you dream the quietest thing you know

                in the unaccustomed silence

“Thrushes”, you say when you wake,

“I heard thrushes singing, far,

far away.”

    

Alan:  An unexpected view of a common enough bird – one that begs to become abstracted, but remains its own surprising self.

Kestrel

Not

                        over the fields

    hovering

                        stooping

          hovering

                                    stooping

not

          in your Air Element

a symbol of grace

                        or God,

    you

sit,

folded, stiff

and still

as sticks

on the low branch

of forsythia

in leafless

frozen

March,

only your head

making tiny movements

as if reading a newspaper

of dead grass,

scanning

for word of a vole

or oblivious junco

within your

quick grasp;

your small beak

and sideburns

crisp as a gigolo’s moustache,

your russet

breast-feathers

fluffed and showy

as a dowager’s stole,

you

                         not seeing

           this single

chickadee

                                     behind you

                        popping

          with excitement

                                      from twig to twig

Storm Warning \ Climbing March Hill #2

Nancy:  The color of the sky, the flight of birds, air smelling of salt or spruce or mudflats:  quirky weather guides for quirky coastal weather.

Storm Warning

And in the falling snow

in the blowing snow

the crows rose up

whirled

disappeared

for no reason

for good reason

the crows shook the trees

shook the snow

shook the branches

white green black branches

gathered

circled

disappeared

and the warning was

not the snow falling

not the wind turning

the warning was there

in the rising

the going

the empty tree 

Alan: Moving through the seasons is like riding the waves: whatever forward motion we seem to make, it is they that roll away under us and pass into the haze behind.

Climbing March Hill #2

Every year we move

without moving: nomads

in this one place.

And soon again we will be

climbing March Hill,

up the muddy slope of days

watching the sun lift

and settle

a little farther north,

believing that once more

over the frozen crest

will be some sort of water,

some sort of green.