Collecte Works (25 page)

to see her wed in the rich

rich silence of the church,

the little white slave-girl

in her diamond fronds.

In aisle and arch

the satin secret collects.

United for life to serve

silver. Possessed.

Dear Mona, Mary and all

you know as I grow older I think

of people when I was younger

I am lame and dizzy but eat

and hear from Ireland

where my mother was

There's a story in the paper

about the river in your country

how it's used and owned by the people

Television here but I can't use it

I'd go out of my head

old folks often can't

…

International loneliness

is homed. Dear old uncle's

porch's people, prices, peppermints

rock him. He must reach

the hallway off the living room

by night.

Don't tell me property is sacred!

Things that move, yes!—

cars out rolling thru the country

how they like to rest

on me—beer cans and cellophane

on my clean-mowed grounds.

Whereas I'm quiet…I was born

with eyes and a house.

Wartime

I left my baby in Forest A

quivering toward light:

Keep warm, dear thing, drink from the cow—

her stillness is alive

You in the leaves sweetly growing—

survive these plants upheaved

with noise and flame, learn change

in strategy.

I think of Joe who never knew

where his baby went

and Mary heavy, peace or war,

no child, no enlightenment.

February almost March bites the cold.

Take down a book, wind pours in. Frozen—

the Garden of Eden—its oil, if freed, could warm

the world for 20 years and nevermind the storm.

Winter's after me—she's out

with sheets so white it hurts the eyes. Nightgown,

pillow slip blow thru my bare catalpa trees,

no objects here.

In February almost March a snow-blanket

is good manure, a tight-bound wet

to move toward May: give me lupines and a care

for her growing air.

People, people—

ten dead ducks' feathers

on beer can litter…

                      Winter

will change all that

July, waxwings

on the berries

have dyed red

                the dead

branch

Old man who seined

to educate his daughter

sees red Mars rise:

              What lies

behind it?

Cold water business

now starred in Fishes

of dipnet shape

             to ache

thru his arms.

Mother is dead

The branches' snow is like the cotton fluff

she wore in her aching ears. In this deaf huff

after storm shall we speak of love?

As my absent father's distrait wife

she worked for us—knew us by sight.

We know her now by the way the snow

protects the plants before they go.

The graves

You were my mother, thorn apple bush,

armed against life's raw push.

But you my father catalpa tree

stood serene as now—he refused to see

that the other woman, the hummer he shaded

                      hotly cared

for his purse petals falling—

                          his mind in the air.

Kepler

Comets you say shoot from nothing?

In heaven's name what other

than matter can be matter's mother.