|
 At
Morskie Oko Lake, Zakopane
It is a gray country
even when the sky is blue
and today it is raining.
Mist gathers itself
a quiet fist
clutching the mountains.
Nuns in gray habits
walk over gray rocks
circling the lake.
If this is too much gray
look at the trees, green
bodies, beds of moss
waiting, the small blue
eyes of niezapominakji*
watching.
The nuns have disappeared
and only the shore of the lake
the eye of the sea
is visible, a narrow
border of aquamarine
filled with trout flicking
tails in cold water
swimming in the only
sky there is.
*forget-me-nots
Also, appears Private, International Review of Black and White
Photographs and Text, From Poland, Issue No. 41, Summer 2008
The Trumpeter of Krakow
I swear on my honor as a Pole,
as a servant of the King of the Polish
people, that I will faithfully and
unto the death, if there be need, sound
upon the trumpet the Heynal in honor
of Our Lady each hour in the Tower of
the church which bears her name.
Ancient oath of the Trumpeter of Krakow
The whole city listens
when the trumpeter plays.
People open their ears
and look up at the sky
cloudy today or a hazy
blue, smeared with dirt
from Nowa Huta's steel
mills. A whole country
of ears waiting
for the broken note,
as if listening
could make the song
complete.
I am listening, too,
and the listening does
heal the brokenness
like the flash of color
on a butterfly's wing
makes us happy
when we are not.
The trumpeter plays the hour
and has for 800 years
since the Tartars
surrounded him, reminding
all who listen:
Each of us
is invaded
daily, hourly
minute by minute
by time
and its deadly
arrows.
How to sing
from the highest steeple
and warn the city
with the sounds
that live
in us
and the world?
Also, appears Private, International Review of Black and White
Photographs and Text, From Poland, Issue No. 41, Summer 2008
For Ciotka*
Felinow, August
We are cutting
off the poppies' heads
long after
the bloom.
It is the seed
we want.
Add egg, sugar, flour
and vanilla:
poppy seed cake.
My mouth waters
as we walk the row
gathering dried stalks
into our arms.
I tell you I will keep
one pod. When
I shake it thousands
of miles away the quiet
sound the seeds make
will remind me of you,
the crone of the family.
Your head spins, your heart
hurts and all
the food you eat
comes back
to trouble you.
You do not like
to think
of yourself
as dried up.
A dried-up woman
takes up room
by the fire.
So you stand and cook
all day, walking across
the muddy yard
to climb the wood pile
in search
of the driest pieces.
How is it
that wood
and poppy seeds
are at their best
when dried
but you are not?
aunt
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, August 15
1.
She has gone
to heaven
where she will
intercede
for us.
She is the earth
and cannot
forget us.
Last night
under a half moon
she rose
with the smoke
from the burning
stubble, a bonfire
in the fields
lighting her way.
When she passed
the moon
she cast
a shadow:
this dream
Through the muddy
fields of Felinow
three women
come to me
to show me a spring.
I search for it
all day
in every leaf
and lark.
2.
My aunt arranges
a bouquet
her daughter-in-law
has gathered
to be blessed
in church.
Mach* buckwheat barley millet
dill dahlias asparagus fern
cabbage leaf daisies gladioli
green beans roses and phlox
When the next cow calves
the dried bloom
will sweeten her
first drinking water
and Mary’s blessing
flow from her udders.
3.
The sow and her ten piglets
roam the locked farmyard.
I sit on a stool
in the mud and sun.
We are all on holiday.
The odor of chamomile
strong as church incense
after the rain
and the pigs' rooting.
The sow makes
a deep sound
in her foraging
and the piglets run
on tiny hooves
through the mud
toward her.
*poppy seed
4.
A woman wearing
a white head scarf
and a red dress
walks the rutted road
on her way to church
carrying a bouquet.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin May, August 15, original
musical score by Annelinde Metzner, Asheville, North Carolina,
June 1989.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, (text used and titled
The Abundance of Mary), included in a CD, The Abundance of Mary,
Songs and Poems of the Divine Feminine, recorded live at the
Unitarian Universalist Church, Asheville, North Carolina, August
27, 2006, produced by Annelinde Metzner.
The Shrine of the Black Madonna at Czestochowa
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a hill
cannot be hid.
Matthew 5:14
A multitude, such as Jesus must have spoken to, swells the
cathedral. What century is this? You are the destination of a
blood-red tunnel. The old mother, icon of a people. I am
gazing into a birth canal, being pushed toward you, and you are
the world I am entering.
A world that is in the world, but not of it, where my heart is a
spring of clear water, cold and fresh. A world where joy sits on
my lap always. A world where pain is seasonal and you birth
all of it. Again and again taking illness and death into you to
make the new moon of beginnings possible.
The people surrounding me are ripples breaking on the rim of a
pool deep in the mountains. And they hold me up.
There is an old woman behind me who cannot see you, she is
so stooped. I turn to one side, my eyes riveted on you. We rise
and kneel again. The woman cannot. I offer her my arm and she
pulls herself up. And down again, leaning on me. I am
weeping. We are both smiling. While you watch.
Some Thoughts on the Polish Custom of Greeting
Every Occasion with Flowers
That last night
in the ancient capital
there are flowers
at my feet
as I step
onto the tram.
Lupine and pansy
in a nosegay
purple against
the dense black
of the street.
I pick the bouquet
crushing the flowers
to my face
where the tears
are waiting.
Also, appears Private, International Review of Black and White
Photographs and Text, From Poland, Issue No. 41, Summer 2008
All poems
from This Is Not a Place to Sing, West End, 1987 |
