Devil's Garden Poetry Assignment

"All Dick's Grass"
Click image to view larger

Canyon Cataracts

Moqui Marbles, Coyote Gulch, the Grand Staircase, petrified wood; Marlon Brando

loved Escalante, and you loved me. Red-rock Cave, Golden Cathedral, Slot Canyon,

Wild Cat Gulch; dream images fade in sunrise. Toadstool Trail, Hoodoos, Rimrocks,

Natural Bridge, The Woman’s Dance; over time, our hearts grow blind.  Bryce Canyon,

Indian petroglyphs, Devil’s Garden; we fail to see, with true delight, even the most

exquisite scenery; we fail to see each other. Under the falls, spray; eyes almost opaque.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

20150423-1023-2^nd, Thursday, April 23, 2015, 1^st

Iowa Poetry mooc assignment 2/2, define the line, then write a poem following that definition of line.  My definition, the breath.

(NOTE:  This poem is NOT directed toward Keith!)

A Visit with Van Gogh, in French

{pre}A la rencontre de Van Gogh/Rencontre avec Van Gogh

Je déambule à travers de larges touches de soleil,

des champs de blé courbés, des femmes chargées

du blé en gerbes, des arbres sombres

au loin. A la lisière du champ, il est assis, affaissé,

immobile, et rempli de lumière. Je m’assieds

près de lui, contemple cette fin d’après-midi,

le chaume des champs ,

L’âpre surface de la terre/l’épiderme rugueux du sol

Dans ses yeux sombres et sauvages,

L’espace d’un instant, je vois des galaxies

entrer en collision, d’étincelantes cités des ténèbres

tomber en ruines. Il reporte son regard sur sa palette,

sur les champs par-delà sa toile

mes doigts jouent avec un éclat d’obsidienne,

sentent l’arête de la surface lisse,

les ténèbres de son implosion.

Un trou noir s’épanouit au cœur de son âme.

Le bord de ma manche, l’ourlet

de ma robe, ma chevelure soufflent vers lui.

Une grande lumière émane de ses ténèbres,

illuminant la nuit qui tombe.{

Mary Stebbins Taitt, ........

Mary Stebbins Taitt ........ translated by Marie Rivet
This poem originally appeared in Montserrat Review in March of 1999
see my version here.  (I accidentally created two different poetry blogs.)

[The stupid blogger keep translating it (poorly) back into English)  Click "show original" (above) to see in French, and to see my original poem in English, use the LINK!]

Etched

Etched

Mists of water fall
and fall. No damp squirrel, no
bird, no elm leaf stirs.

Elm leaves and their lean
branches droop, pulled down
by a weight of rain.

In silhouette, sparse
leaves and lean branches etch themselves
against wet grey sky.

a cycle of three haiku

Brilliance Afield

Brilliance Afield

Burning the wild lands, the moon rises gold; gold the eyes of wolves

Running in a rapid crouch up the snowy hill.  Exhaling,

I slip into the aspens, follow their tracks into a threshold of

Light under the firs.  The moon squats fat among them. I

Linger and watch, afraid.  Discard the fantasy that

I could be accepted, that I could be safe, that I could run.  With them.

A screech of owl cries. Wolves sing: close chorus, far response.

Nothing contains the fierce sacredness of this music.  I want to

Call back from this hidden body.  I pluck a tuft of fur from a drift,

Embrace bare branches, moon-bruised sky.  In

A cloud-smudged mirror of ice, shadows flicker, a broke

Face of moon shimmers.  I whisper: elk, caribou, antelope.  Stubbornly,

I reclaim the dream of hunting with the wolves.  Oh folly!  Will I return to this

Evening over and over, sifting through these images, lies and dreams?

Late-night owl calls again.  Wolf tracks fade in drifting snow.  I glimpse

Deer, then fox.  Braid my tracks into theirs.

Notes:
1)This is an Acrostic poem. Acrostics are often used as games or doggerel. I have chosen here to attempt a serious acrostic poem. 
2)I would like to invite anyone interested to "play along" by writing serious (or not-so serious) acrostic poems and then posting the links in my comments section. I am sure you all know that in an acrostic poem, the first letter of each line creates a word when read vertically. It is a fun way to write about love or friendship or any other topic.
3)Poem and art by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt, published in Avocet. I'd love to think all of you subscribe to Avocet and have already read my poem, but I am guessing that is not the case. Because published poems are often read only by those who subscribe, I think I may post one of my published poems, maybe once a week, to share them with you. I hope that's OK.

Botanical Gardens
Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, California
photo by me
click image to view larger

Haiku: What the Heart Feels

by Mary Stebbins Taitt · 32 words

What the heart feels when
anger and hatred are set
aside: love, peace, joy.

Yes, I know this is not a traditional haiku.

And NO I do NOT know what the flowers are, please enlighten me.

Poppies in Rain
Acrylic on Paper
by me, Mary Stebbins Taitt

From the Dark Centers of Flowers

by Mary Stebbins Taitt · 129 words

Sometimes, I journey into darkness
while every shadow harbors a malevolent bat
whose wings reach out, sticky as spider webs
to trap me.

It’s a lovely day, friends say, trying
to cheer me. The sun shines; its warmth
caresses my skin, but in the shade, bats gather,
gnashing their teeth as their claws grow pointy.

When I bend to smell the flowers, the bats
ambush me. They pour from the center
of each blossom like flying monkeys,
like a plague of locusts.

When they eat holes in me, I am moth-eaten;
I am Swiss cheese. I am lace curtains
blackened by coal-fired ovens. I am despair.
The sun shines through me.

I am a pattern of light.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
120329-1642-1st

location: Detroit, San Francisco

photosource: me (acrylic painting) (detail from "the Misunderstanding")

New Eggplant Poem (draft)

This is a new poem that I wrote for my poetry class with Dawn McDuffie.  The formatting came out sucky, sorry about that!  :-(  It is a DRAFT:

Aubergine, Solanum melongena, a Recipe

Open your loppers and wield them like the mandibles

of a huge insect. Steer them step-by-step toward the tall rangy plants

that bow with the weight of their fruit.  Swoop and center the jaws

around the fruit-stalk, yank closed the teeth to sever the tough stem. 

Watch the purple, pear-shaped fruit plop onto soil

damp and fragrant from days of rain. Carry it reverently

to the coiled hose, allowing each of your ten fingers

to stroke the rich, smooth skin. Wash the few dirt clusters

from the plump base of the fruit with a soft spray

and dry the fruit on your clean cotton apron. Enjoy the way

the water droplets sink into the fabric and disappear,

leaving only faint and fading dark spots on the paisley pattern.

Brush your lips against skin the color of stormy sunset. 

Inside, place a skillet on the fire, add fat, and turn up the flame.

Slide the cutting board from its home along the window wall

and pull the thick-handled butcher knife from its block. 

Lay your sacrifice on the wooden altar and slice from the shoulders

to the hips.  Pause to admire the creamy flesh and small designs

of seed. In a low, flat dish pour stone-ground cornmeal, flour,

salt, pepper, garlic, and a pinch of Old Bay.  Blend with a fork.

From the egg basket on the sideboard, raise your piles

of fresh-picked spinach, cilantro and parsley, pausing to sniff

the aromatic cilantro, and lift out two brown eggs.  Thump them

quickly against the edge of the sink, pull the shells apart

and let the wet suns in their small seas fall into a flat dish. 

Mix with the fork. One by one, lay the slices in the beaten eggs,

flip them, lay them in the cornmeal, flip them and drop them

into hot fat. Listen for a quick sizzle and a hiss of bubbles.

When the edges brown, turn them over and watch them dance.

When the slices resemble the sunset gold of the elm leaves

that gather in the tall grass outside your window, lay them

on towels to drain and cool. Arrange like petals of a flower

on Grandma’s heirloom Botanica platter, with sprigs of parsley

and cilantro. Danger!  Don't make these more than once a year

and don’t burn your tongue as you groan and savor

the crunchy crust that clings to the hot, soft fruit.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

for Margaret and Keith

111018-1516-2a(3), 111017-1432-1b(2), 111017-0836-1^st complete,111016 partial draft a

Further instructions, not part of poem:

layer the leftovers with tomatoes and parmesan

and bake. Cut into rectangular chunks and serve warm.

-OR- Place the fresh fruit in the microwave ten minutes.  Cool.  Carefully scrape the soft pulp

from the now delicate skin, add lemon, olive oil, tahini and garlic

and spread on pita, toast or chips.  Wallow then, in the gorgeous glory of baba ghanouj.  

Turn Back the Clock (new Poem)

Turn Back the Clock

I cannot look at the face

of the man who killed Norway's children.

I turn away in horror.

Why? I ask my husband, why

did he kill children?

Why children? How could they have harmed him?

Why did he dress as a policeman, the one person

we teach our children to trust, to go to for help

and safety? Why did he then

shoot them?

Why did he shoot them as they ran, shoot them as they swam

off the island toward the mainland, trying to escape?

Why

did he do it? How could he?

Why? I cry.

And cry.

Fibers of my heart

tear apart

shred

the little strands of muscles part

and all the soul leaks out.

I want to go back in time

gather the children

and protect them.

I want to turn back the clocks

and make them safe.

I want to restore

the lives they have lost

and let them flow forward again

to their own fruition.

I want to go backwards in time

and undo the evil

that made the man

do what he did

before he did it.

"If you want to bake an apple pie

from scratch

you must first invent the universe."

I want to reinvent the world

without that pain.

I want to erase every thread

that led to that event,

unwind it, unravel it

back to its source,

ablate that well of darkness

and set the wheels turning again

so those children run free,

laugh, grow up.

Or I want

someone

somehow

to

save

those children

who can no longer be saved.

I cannot look at the face

of Anders Behring Breivik.

I want to trust the world again.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

"If you want to bake an apple pie from scratch you must first invent the universe." Carl Sagan

110725-0900-2a(2), 110724 1st draft

Images harvested from internet, for which I apologize. Click images to view larger.

Two more poems being translated into French

Marie de Montpellier (in France) is translating two more of my poems into French.  She's already done two others.  Her current choices are one from Desire ("Forgetting You") and one from Counting Fingers, Smelting Light ("Remembering Ricky").  I am very excited, pleased and honored.  YAY!  :-D  Woohoo!

First IPad Poem

If

What if, instead of dying flowers, perfume

smelled like mountaintops, like granite

and fir-filtered wind?  Breezes lift our feet

from the rock and fragrance-scented air

buoys us up over golden rows of mountains.

You laugh like a child taking his first step

out onto the taut surface of water

and instead of sinking, we skate

on that tensile surface that quivers

like my heart when you reach

the long pin feathers of your wings

and wrap them all light and tickle

and remember around me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

for Keith

first poem on Ipad,

1000618-1557-2b(3), 100617

Fool's Errand

"THE SNIPE HUNT" by Mary Stebbins Taitt (click image to view larger.)

Fool’s Errand

Winged as a curlew, long-beaked as a woodcock,

sleep whistles and dives through the shattered night.

Searching, I scrabble through dark swamps

reeking of marsh gas and fœtid with the smells

of rotting fish. My song bursts with yearning,

alternating chipping, burbling and fluting sounds,

like a sparrow held under water. My pleading

tastes of the raw shrimp and crayfish I wave

in a mesh bag. Snipe bait. Muddy ooze seeps

cold through the knees and hem of my nightgown,

black muck and slime cling to my fingers and toes.

Burdocks, stick tights and beggars ticks

burrow in my hair. I carry a snare for the snipe

of sleep, but when the bird swoops by and I reach

to snag it, my fingers pass, ethereal, through

a taunting fantasia of feathers, fog and clouds

of unborn sleep that drifts past, damp, intangible

and utterly unattainable. Snipe dreams tumble by,

hauntingly near but always beyond reach.

They refuse to descend into my wake-parched eyes.

I strain toward the gibbering voices of dream

phantoms. They talk in tongues, whisper

and twitter in mysterious dream-coded languages

and their aurora-colored feathers flutter

around my bed, falling like the warm snow of dreams

but never touching my face. Long snipe beaks

tear the night in strips, shredding it into confettis

of longing. The snipe of sleep will be neither captured

nor kept. It cannot be domesticated. Elusive, beyond wild,

it ranges over the incalculable waters of night. It turns

bedrooms into swamplands and sanity

into shrieking lunacy.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

A snipe hunt is a wild-goose chase or fool's errand. The term originated from a practical joke where experienced campers convinced inexperienced campers to capture a “snipe,” variously described as a bird or animal. The novice campers were given absurd methods of catching the snipe, such as running through the woods carrying a bag while making odd noises (snipe calls). Real snipes, shorebirds with long bills, are so difficult to catch for even experienced hunters that the word "sniper" originally meant someone skilled enough to shoot a snipe.

Perhaps if I could capture the snipe of sleep alive (and release it in the morning), I could finally rest. But if, sniper like, I shoot it, sleep will never come.

100417-1203-4b(12), 100416-2249-3g(10), 100411-1838-2b(3), 8/16/2007 4:37 PM

This and the previous version at the Rolandale Silk Creek Retreat House in the Hiker Kitty Room. NaPoWriMo (National Poetry Month)

Tree Dreams

newer version:

Tree Dreams in February

Under the ground, a dark and perpetual night, almost as void
of life as deep space, presses cold teeth against the dreaming trees,
but the trees sink further into their roots and listen all the way up
the long fibers of their empty veins to owls rustling in their nests,
to small movements inside the eggs, to the first cracking
that heralds these winter babies, these messengers of spring.
Lost in their roots, sunk in depths of the frozen earth, trees dream
of sweet sunshine, of snow melting, of the slow unfurling of leaves
and flowers, of fledgling owls stretching their wings and launching
into the great pale blue of treacherous air. The trees remember
summer nights, owls lifting silently from their branches, occluding
the moon and stars, or hooting to one another from high above
the branches where the little diurnal birds rest in their nests.
The trees dream the smell of summer wind and the wet caresses
of rain. As they weave into their dreams the smells
of their own flowers, the tastes of their own nectar,
the touch of the bees’ pollen-laden feet and gentle tongues,
the taste of frozen earth loses its pungent bitterness.

Mary Stebbins Taitt, 1st, a poem for the unity web exercise.
100213-1554-1c(3), 100213-1013-1st

First draft:

Tree Dreams

Deep in the frozen earth, trees dream
of sweet sunshine, snow melting, of the slow unfurling of leaves
and flowers. Underground, a dark and perpetual night, as empty
of life as deep space, presses its cold teeth against the dreaming trees,
but the trees sink deeper into their roots and dream of summer nights,
of owl flight and the resting diurnal birds tucked in nests in the trees’
safe branches. They remember being awake, they remember the smell
of wind and breezes and the wet caresses of rain. As they weave
into their dreams the smells of their own flowers, the taste
of their own nectar, the touch of the bees’ pollen-laden feet
and gentle tongues, the taste of frozen earth loses its bitterness.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

1st draft just now.

The illo is also called "Tree Dreams" and is a quick "Unity Web," my personal version of Zentangle, which I cannot afford to buy. Of course a quick Zentangle is probably an oxymoron, but I can't help it, I need to go. See more Zentagles here, most of which are much nicer than my quick "Unity Web." If you click on the illo, you can see it larger.

I learned about Zentangles from Nessa here.

Life is a Circus

Life is Circus

In the circus of my sanity, no applause
ripples the canvas, no cheers
harmonize with the band.  My mind
wobbles across the tight rope, sagging,
slipping, tumbling into the darkness
where no nets wait to catch me.
The lion's maw, full of rotted teeth,
yawns open and I tumbled toward it.
My last sequins sparkle faintly
in the fading light as all goes black.

Mary Taitt, 11.24.09

This is for Laura Tattoo

Meeting the Neighbors in my Nightgown

Meeting the Neighbors in my Nightgown

It wasn't fire or an earthquake that brought me outside
in my nightgown; I went only to fill the backyard bird feeder
so that the early risers could fill their tummies
but glanced up at a quiet whine from Nelson
as Frank yelled, "He doesn't bark at you,
anymore; he's decided he likes you," and they
came across the street toward me, Frank
in his wrinkled Madras shorts and unbuckled black galoshes,
though it wasn't raining and there were no puddles
or even sprinklers running.  His chartreuse shirt
with the giant Mickey Mouse clashed with the ragged
pink and orange shorts.  I was embarrassed
to have no bra, worried my breasts would giggle,
held my arms carefully over them until I bent
to pet Nelson and saw the hairy grizzly-bear heads
peering up through Frank's open black galoshes.
Eliana from next door was beside me then,
arms folded across her chest, bra-less, too,
wearing her son's high-top basketball shoes
and in a too short nightie with a man's shirt clutched
about her until she, too, bent to pet Nelson.
She giggled, I giggled, and suddenly we all laughed,
laughed and laughed until tears ran down our faces.
Nelson yapped at us and all the neighborhood dogs
set into howling and the mailman, coming around
the corner with his arms full, handed us our mail
with only the slightest flicker of a smile, said
"Top O'the Morning to you," and tipped his cap. 
He bowed, danced a little jig, clicked his heels together,
and continued down the street, while Frank, Eliana
and I retreated quickly back into our separate homes,
wiping away tears and snorting softly to ourselves.


Mary Stebbins Taitt
090514-1639-1b(2), 090514-1225-1st

Vertigo Fear Shadows

Vertigo Fear Shadows

At the edge of a shadow cast by the neighbor's oak,
sun shines on my face, a breeze rustles my hair
and the shadow of the oak shifts and wriggles, restless
and hungry, withdrawing and then approaching
my bare toes, over and over while the whole dancing
shadow with it's patches of sun slides slowly closer.
Shadows of leaves, shadows of branches, shadows
of baby acorns nestled among the leaves.  Shadows
of robins passing each other with worms and insects,
shadows of their babies opening wide their mouths.
Such a chorus of pleading.  Wingbeats, then stillness.
A touch of cold startles me.  I look down to see darkness
on my hands, isolated and with no visible source
from the tree.  The deep, cloudless sky throws no shadows,
but the shadow on my wrist expands toward my heart.
Compelled to drink from that well of night, I bend toward
my hands.  A black wave engulfs me.  The earth tilts, the sky
spins and the tree lurches.  I smell bruised grass, damp soil.
Feel tiny pebbles mashed into my cheek.  Taste salt and iron.
Sweating and cold, I watch the jonquils and tulips leap jaggedly
in the garden.  Jump and twist spasmodically.  On my knees,
my body curls in Bala-asana, the child pose, and I close
my eyes to still the jumping.  The darkness
behind my eyes turns and jerks raggedly.  I breathe
slowly.  Feel a passing chill, another shadow.
I open my eyes to see a vulture circling, its shadow
passing over me again and again.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090512-1319-1b, 090512-1229-1st

NOTE:  This did NOT happen as written, but is a combination of the earlier experience of vertigo with the later experience of the shifting shadows and the mysterious one on my hand.

This would not format correctly below. See it correctly formatted here.

Friends


OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I detest work
but I need a milkshake. Ready? Here goes:

I saunter in the kitchen door.

“I love you, little Sweetness and Light,” my mother says.

“Whatever,” I answer, and keep on walking.

Hear the grump in my voice? She deserves it.
First, I’m not little. I’m a teenager, and I tower
over her. OK, only by an inch or two,
but she’s no dwarf.

Anyway, I’m not little, I’m not sweet,
and I generate no light, except
perhaps toward any witches who see auras.
Mom might; she’s that weird.

I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back
and give her a hug.

"OK, what do you want?” She asks.

“Friendship,” I say.

She guesses right, of course.
I hug her mostly only when I want something.
The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background
or disappears off my radar entirely.
She knows it, too.

I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.
I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.
I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games
and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.
I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.
I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room
clean the bird cage and bury the compost.
Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .

I hug her again, stroke her hair. “Friend,” I say.
“Milkshake,” I say. “Real friends
make their friends milkshakes.
You’re my friend, right Mom?”

“Oh,” she says, “you want to make me a milkshake,
how sweet. You charm me with your generosity.”

“Awwwwww . . .” I release a big sigh
and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,
but already, she hauls out the milk
ice-cream and sugar.

“Chocolate,” I yell, as I dash upstairs.

Don’t tell Mom, but I often create a perfect milkshake.
I just hate to wash the blender.
Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon
or George killed any monsters yet.
And she can wash the blender.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090504-1157-2e, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1st of this version (earlier draft/version was a short prose poem)

earlier draft below:

Friends

OK, watch this; see if I don't win. I need a milkshake

but detest work. I saunter in the kitchen door.

"I love you, little Sweetness and Light," my mother says.

"Whatever," I answer, and keep on walking.

I hear the grump in my voice, but she deserves it.

First, I'm not little. I'm a teenager, and I tower

over her. OK, only by an inch or two,

but she's no dwarf.

Anyway, I'm not little, I'm not sweet,

and I generate no light, except

perhaps toward any witches who see auras.

Mom might; she's that weird.

I stroll toward the stairs a few steps, then turn back

and give her a hug.

"OK, what do you want?" She asks.

"Friendship," I say. She guesses right, of course.

I hug her mostly only when I want something.

The rest of the time, she vanishes into the background

or disappears off my radar entirely.

She knows it, too.

I do want something. I want a LOT. I want money.

I want to stay up all night and sleep all day.

I want to eat candy, drink soda, play video games

and watch TV. Hang out with my friends.

I want no school, homework, baths, clean clothes.

I want to refuse to practice the piano, clean my room

clean the bird cage and bury the compost.

Fat chance; but if I play my cards right . . .

I hug her again, stroke her hair. "Friend," I say.

"Milkshake," I say. "Real friends

make their friends milkshakes.

You're my friend, right Mom?"

"Oh," she says, "you want to make me a milkshake,

how sweet. You charm me with your generosity."

"Awwwwww . . ." I release a big sigh

and roll my best sad puppy eyes at her,

but already, she hauls out the milk

ice-cream and sugar.

"Chocolate," I yell, as I dash upstairs.

Don't tell Mom, but I create a perfect milkshake.

I just hate to wash the blender.

Now I can leap into Runescape and see if Simon

or George killed any monsters yet.

And Mom can wash the blender.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

090504-0340-2c, 090503-2149-1c, 090503-1911-1^st of this version (earlier draft/version was a shorter prose poem)

NaPoWriMo #19

I spent a lot of time trying to get this to format correctly on the blog, but it would not. So Sorry. Wahn! Waste of time, too!

Conversing with a leaf

for Class tonight:

Conversing with a Leaf

Like a fledgling, it quivers. Though dead and brown,
cracked and dried, it shakes its thin wings. In scratches
and wiggles, it talks with the wind, then speaks to me
with unconcealed enthusiasm. I look around to be sure
you're not watching. If you were watching, you might think
I've lost my wits. Perhaps you'd be right.
I converse with a leaf, though I utter not a word, but instead,
shake my arms with quick spasms and flutters like a baby bird
begging for food. I open wide my mouth—a foolish sight,
you'd surely think, for one so large, without beak or feathers,
so decidedly un-bird-like. When I smile at the leaf, would you
think me an idiot? I ask the leaf for nothing, but thank it
and the wind for reminding me to look. Yes, spring comes.
Pausing in my tasks, delighted by its long-awaited warmth,
I raise my arms to the sun, rejoice in the purple glory of hyacinths
and blousy yellow jonquils that burst from under last year's
narrow, snow-blanched leaves. In grape-bark, grass
and mud nests, eggs hatch. Cardinals and robins
will soon fledge. You're not watching, are you?
Because the morning light and warmth seems ample
reason to dance around the talking leaf. I fling my arms,
twirl toward the promise of lilacs and the sweet breath
of hyacinths and flap and jiggle wildly for all the season's
fetal but upcoming baby birds.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
^this line, and everything below the line, is not part of the
poem—note to self, some drafts of this were not printed!
090427-1231-4a, 090426-1137-3a, 090425-2148-2e, 090424-2043-1g, 090424-0930-1st
Sun could paint my face with light and I might enjoy jonquils, hyacinths
and choruses of spring birdsong if I stayed outdoors. But instead, I go inside
and struggle with recalcitrant and unforgiving words. Woe closes
like darkness, cloys like stale air, on the poet who cannot or will not
relax and savor clusters of many-stamened speckled Hellebores
but carries experience away from its source
and ponders the language around it endlessly in the dimness
of her study. I am torn between the need to record and arrange these words
and the desire to stroke satin petals, while outside, sun shines
on newly opened scarlet and yellow tulips.

Started from the following journal excerpt: Conversing with a Leaf,
from my journal 090424: Through heaps of fallen lanceolate leaves,
bleached almost white by snow and sun, the neighbors' hyacinths press,
purple glories making their way without the aid of gardeners. And
next door, pink ones, like small fluffs of cotton candy on green
sticks, carefully tended. I incline my caring toward the wilder ones.
The air is cold but the sun is warm. On the sidewalk, a dead brown
oak leaf trembles in the wind, leaping about gently without blowing
away, reminding me of a baby bird, begging for food. If you had been
watching, you would have seen me speaking to the leaf, though uttering
not a word.

A Trick of Light (NaPoWriMo #18 Word Salad)

A Trick of Light

When her compass of shadows points only to darkness,
a rumble slashes behind her, a torn crack of sound.
Imagine the girl, hair brushing her waist, gown hitched up
and clinging damply to her skin as she wades through
the tall wildflowers that brush her bare legs with dew.
She turns in the meadow, resplendent with reds from the low sun,
curious and afraid. She holds the purple asters and goldenrods
close to her chest, flowers that evermore will signify the end
of summer, half the end, in a way, of everything,
but she doesn't know that yet. Not quite yet. She sees the horses
first, black, green-eyed, drooling spittle, dancing in their harnesses.
They paw at the air and rock; sparks fly from their hooves.
She sees the driver next, dark, handsome, old. Then young,
a sort of trick of the light. He is already in front of her
before she thinks to bolt. He seizes her, scoops her with an arm
around her waist, just as she begins to scream. Her head falls back,
flung on her thin neck by the upward rush as the chariot spins
and turns downward again. Dangling like this, she sees
one last glimpse of the darkening meadow, the flowers
a sea of colors, the stars whirl, the moon sets precipitously
at the edge of the chasm. The Underland seethes with the dead.
Their eyes and skin glow greenish, like foxfire or fireflies,
giving the vast caverns an eerie light. Creepy. In the throne room,
Hades makes diamonds for her by crushing coal in his bare hands,
a nifty trick, but Persephone will not stop crying. When he touches her,
the flowers blacken in her hands. She calls and calls for her mother.
He offers rubies, emeralds, pork chops, polenta, chocolate. Of course,
the pomegranate stops the tears. Her mother had fed them to her
as a child, one seed at a time, but when Hades feeds her his seed,
all trace of sweetness disappears from her tongue.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090420-1141-2a; 090419-2016 1st completed 1st draft

the fractal flame was made using Apophysis.

for napowrimo #18: word salad

confined

Confined

Fawn lilies, pale in the shadows of trees, open their throats

and call the bees. Bees, drunk with sleep and winter,

stagger from the hive. The hive hums with its own morning.

Spring caresses the forest lightly. If you hurry, you will see nothing

but the dark still-sleeping trunks of trees. But stop. Place your ear

to the trunk and listen. Sap thrums in its veins, singing

to the buds who hum softly as they gather their new leaves

to unfurl. And in a spot of branch-filtered sun, the first

mourning cloak butterfly fans slow wings among the fallen leaves.

You might mistake it for one of them if you didn't pause and look.

But I cannot look. Confined indoors, I miss the birthday

of the forest: the doe, licking her newborn, pressing

with her nose to balance it as it wobbles toward

its first breakfast. Picture me longing, aching; see me imagining

instead of watching, as, stepping among the white lilies

that bear its name, in a moment never to be repeated,

the newborn fawn takes its fleeting first steps.

Mary Stebbins Taitt

for BB

090419-1153-1c; 090418-1916-1st completed draft

for the prompt, "missing something or someone or something missing" for NaPoWri Mo #17 National Poetry Month at ReadWritePoem.

The fawn in the composit is by Berrybird. The word layout is by Wordle (from my poem). I took the trees and the fawn lily and made the composit.

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

For the NaPoWriMo Challenge #16 Word trails, for national poetry month at ReadWritePoem:

Making it on my Own (Word Trails)

Writing as I walk, I follow word trails through a forest of thought,
each word linked mutably to a host of images and memories.
An Icabod Crane tree hangs over the path: twisted. The word twisted
links to broken, broken to shattered, shattered to glass
and to my heart, that old saw, that cliché that still feels so rich and real
to me, so true, in spite of centuries of overuse. It's difficult
to be a poet when you love clichés. My glass heart shatters from anger,
from a hand or fist or knife, smashed against a face, face links to fly,
fly escape bird wing fast fancy fallow Farrow Darcy.
I liked that name, Darcy. But I could not name
a daughter Darcy because of Darcy Farrow, though any name
must link to some tragedy or other. A good name ruined.
Alicia was another. I'd chosen it as a possibility until Robert Garrow
raped and killed Alicia Houk and abandoned her body along the trail,
the trail I walked to school each day. A beautiful girl left all winter
under the snow, no a trail of words, but a trail of horror. Strange
what we remember and what we forget. A trail of memories.
Reading old letters, I discover that I wrote my parents daily, twice
daily, often, after I left home. Such an outpouring of confusion,
a plethora of words, forbidden words, like fire hunger beg drugs,
like robbed, beaten, kicked, evicted, like plethora, a word my teacher
says not to use in poetry. Much of what I wrote my parents
I forgot, but occasionally, a favorite story surfaces, suddenly revisited,
shiny in the moment of it's recording, fresh with excitement
and pain or matter-of-factly written as commonplace,
two of us cramming into the turnstile together because we only
had one subway token between us. The half-rotted fruit
we pulled from the dumpster behind the grocers, devoured, grateful
for any sustenance. Sitting on the fire escape to get even the slightest
hint of breeze. "Don't send money," I wrote repeatedly
to my parents, "if I can't make it on my own, I'll come home."
Unlike Darcy Farrow, unlike Alicia Houk, I made it home eventually.
Boyfriend lover husband anger fist hit bleed abuse. Finally, escape.
Twisted, broken, shattered, home. I made it home,
if that breathing but mangled girl ringing my parents' doorbell
was still me.

Mary Stebbins Taitt
090417-2124-1c; 090417-1641-1st (complete) draft

word image created on Wordle.