Rewrite Turquoise

No Taj Mahal

I am the kind of woman
some man should build a pool for.  I am

the kind  of woman who appreciates
the reflection of the whole sky.  One 

who delights in clouds daffodil yellow,
clouds the color of sweet plums,

clouds as tall as masted ships
and clouds that hold lightning like

fireflies in a jar.
I will spend my hour of free time
languorously

swimming through that sky.
Pool of stars, pool of morning,
pool of heaven.

I am the kind of woman who wants
a small darling house, next to that pool, one

that blocks no view and lets in the light,
every light the sun and moon have to offer.

I am the kind of woman who is
jealous of the cat and dog that sleep 

in the pane of light cast on the floor like a mat.   

In spring I will bring in
yellow forsythia branches
to dress my blue vases,

in the winter I, like a snake charmer,
will draw out the white amaryllis.  I don't ask for much. 

I've learned not to ask for much-- my life
has been a workshop for that.  But.

One turquoise pool, clear as a conscience

catching every point of light, beside a modest home.

As long as I am asking, after years of not,

may it overlook a pasture, a green pasture

full of emerald-bright and lapis blue dragonflies

and may it all

overlook the ocean.  

I am asking.

Turquoise

Turquoise

I am the kind of woman someone should build a pool for.
The kind who appreciates the reflection of the whole sky, one who
delights in clouds daffodil yellow and clouds the color of bruises and
clouds as tall as buildings, clouds that hold lightning like
fireflies in a jar.
I will spend my hour of free time languorously
swimming through that sky.  I am the kind of woman
who wants a small, darling house that blocks no view
and lets in the light, every light the sun and moon have to offer
and who is jealous of the cat and dog
that sleep in the pane of light cast on the floor
like a mat.   I will bring in the yellow forsythia branch
in spring and raise the white amaryllis like a charmer of snakes
in the winter.  I don't ask for much, I've learned not to
ask for much, my life has been a workshop for that.  But.
One pool beside a home, one turquoise pool
clear as a conscience, catching every point of light.
As long as I am asking, after years of not
asking, may it overlook a pasture, a green pasture
full of emerald-bright dragonflies and electric blue dragonflies
and may it all
overlook the ocean.  I am asking.

Direction

Fog-infected morning, cold

and damp as a fever-broken brow.

They were lost to me beyond the fog,

geese overhead, all noise

and no substance, like memories,

calling back and forth to each other.

Me, land-locked, with places to go

and no wings.  I gave them up long ago,

turned them in with my slighter dreams.
Every fall I wish them back.  

Gladly I would fly away, answer the call.

Happy to know where I was going.

The Pond

Was it more sky than water?
Of course, more water, but the sky
was evident in the reflection.
The pond stared unblinking
speaking only gray clouds until
the muted daylight was gone. Geese,
two of them, skidded to a stop
across it just as night cleared
its throat.

The Heron

Counts it bad luck
to stand in water all day
one leg wet is enough
he tucks the other tightly away
his needle-beak ever poised
above his marshy dinner plate
he doesn't even like fish
you can see it in his reserve
that stiff narrow gray disgust

Clarity, The Answer

Clarity

                                Is the clarity, the simplicity, an arriving or an emptying out?

                                If the heart persists in waiting, does it begin to lessen?

                                If we are always good does God lose track of us?  Jack Gilbert, The Answer

If we are always good, does God lose track

of us?  What comfort is there in hoping now-

the heart nearer the end than the beginning?

You lie beside me doubting, numbering fears

the way I number blessings.  You wake

in the night and feel something important

standing there.  Sleep lost to you, you rise

to stare at your gray reflection under the bathroom light. 

There is your clarity, your promise, as long as the eyes

open and the heart beats.  There is your revelation.  
The silence in you

is absolute and inconvenient.  I cannot enter into it

with you.  I kiss you and want to tell you

in a meaningful way:  I remember

a morning at the beach when I was a girl.

It was so early it was both dawn and night. 

The wind pulled at my hair and stirred the grasses

where I sat on the white sand dune. 

My family was far down the shore. 

Near me, a heron rose blue-gray against the palest

part of the sky.  The music of the waves

played for me alone, and I knew that it

kept playing when I was gone.


This is a Response poem to Jack Gilbert's  The Answer.  Here is Mr. Gilbert's poem:

Is the clarity, the simplicity, an arriving
or an emptying out?  If the heart persists
in waiting, does it begin to lessen?
If we are always good does God lose track
of us?  When I wake at night, there is 
something important there.  Like the humming
of giant turbines in the high-ceilinged stations 
in the slums.  There is silence in me,
absolute and inconvenient.  I am haunted
by the day I walked through the Greek village 
where everyone was asleep and somebody began
playing Chopin, slowly, faintly, inside
the upper floor of a plain white stone house.

Enough of Fairy Tales

When will I be good enough for you

to love?  Shall I weave thistles

into clothes?  Turn straw to gold

enough ransom to buy back your favor?

There are fables enough of wicked

parents-mostly mothers.  Stories

peopled with forlorn children-mostly daughters- the purer

their hearts the more dire the circumstance.

Maybe if fathers told the stories- some fathers-

instead of mothers, the daughters

would all be safe long before the necessary evils threatened.

Mothers adore happy endings, morality

plays, coated salty and sweet.  

All’s well that ends well enough.

My story.  It’s too sad.  There is never

a happy ending.  It only begins.

Once she had a father.  And then,

it ends.