Inheritance 1962

Inheritance

The inheritance of forest sounds
discovered by a thirsty child
is mine and from my throat
the years of vigil songs
rush in notes unreigned.
That I sing, therefore,
I cannot help;
only choice of length have I.
Oh, to sing unendingly.

In Loving Memory

IN LOVING MEMORY

October 1990

ACROSS THE MILES

Five years and how many stars away,

what have you seen by now?

Have you watched the binding of the Pleiades

or the loosening of the bands of Orion?

Have you counted the water jars tipped

into our mountain sky; followed

the guiding of Arcturus at his

appointed time;

surveyed the storehouses of snow?

If there is no weeping there, have you

attended the charting of peace

and hummed to the melodic

lights of healing?

Here, on this stilly autumn night

we recall the examples of prudence and

humanity, generosity and humor

you set for us

and think or you, Adventurer.

Christine Janz Taylor

Published in The Blowing Rocket October 1990

1973

A MEDICINE FOR GROWING PAINS

   It never used to bother me. Lately, though, it had become like a recurring dream that was clearly clairvoyant but without recognizable significance. I couldn't quite manage the feeling--vague, fleeting but often containing a sudden sharpness to it that seemed to be a warning signal.
   Three times a week, I go to the laundromat. I set my book on top of my laundry cart and walk four blocks to Sepulveda where there is a corner shopping area. The people at the laundromat are not a regular crowd or of any distinctive group, probably because it is not right at the beach. I like to watch the sorting of laundry at the tables and speculate on life-styles. Sometimes I have struck up remarkable conversations. Often, I have sat reading my book.
   On Valentine's morning, I was feeling sad.
   My small son Erik yells goodbye all the way down the street as he starts off to school; I answer until I can't hear him. On Valentine's morning, he had a bag of Valentines that he had spent a week addressing. He had not wanted to simply print the names; he had insisted on making great swirling letters with the first blocked off in the manner of Benedictine manuscripts.
   I hoped he'd have a good day. I kept thinking about the pencil-box episode in How Green was my Valley. Valentine's Day was going to be no easy task for me.
   As I left for the laundromat, I considered not taking my book but at the last second I shoved into the cart with a mad thrust as if to say, "You're the cause of it all."
   It was a windy morning. I walked over quickly.
   As I loaded my set of washing machines, I noticed a man at the table near me. I was riveted for a full moment to his small stack of laundry.
   In the time I've been going to the laundromat, I have come to the conclusion that sheets are an interesting indicator of lifestyle. There has been such a variety that I have been amazed. In all the time I've been going, nobody has had the same sheets as I, which puzzled me.
   The man had my sheets only his were blue.
   Mine are yellow but I'd like blue better. I wished I could trade. It made me laugh to think what he'd say if I asked him. I found it hard to concentrate on what I was doing. The little bunches of blue flower clusters on the sheets reminded me of the pattern on the coat my mother made for me when I was eight years old, the coat I had snuggled in under on the night train to Paris. Everyone then had gone to sleep a few minutes after we left Geneva. Except for me. Snow had begun to fall. I had never seen snow fall in the night outside train windows. The snowflakes were soundless and gentle; and I was warm under my home-made coat. I wanted to wake someone but I was afraid. So I lay awake all night crying quietly because I thought I had never seen anything so beautiful.
   I noticed briefly that the man had reddish hair and then I sat down to read.
   I needed my book. I have become, in the last year, very defensive about my book. I've wanted to put a brown wrapper on it, curl in the corner by the #9 dryer and close out the world.
   I set the book on my lap so no one could see what I was reading and bent over it. I became completely engrossed and was soon far away and long ago in France.
   I heard a voice say to me, "My God, you're reading Proust."
   I had the urge to growl, "You want to make something of it?" but I glanced up because I couldn't figure out how anybody could tell I was reading Proust unless he had himself read Proust. It was the man with the reddish hair and the blue sheets trimmed with eyelet.
   "Yes," I said and then timidly, as if I really weren't up to knowing, I asked, "Have you read him?"
   "I read the whole thing. Took me four years."
   I braced myself, "How was it?"
   "Unforgettable."
   He began to talk. He talked about Proust's village of Combray, about the wonderful characters and how he had read Proust in Kansas City.
   And I began to talk. I told him that I had always been very much nested in my house, coming out and into society like a groundhog to volunteer piano playing for seasonal musical events. I had been content. But when I started my writing class, I had a strange thing happen to me. I was confronted for the first time in a long time with my taste. Unknowingly, a new feeling had taken hold. I was meeting with a group I liked, intelligent, witty, and I had been overwhelmed by a longing. A longing for affiliation. I kept wanting these people to be "my people." I had begun to question my judgment because so much of what was important to me turned out to be important only to me. I had been shaken by this.
   He asked me why I didn't pick out a particular group to belong to that liked the same things I did. Was I aware that there is a Proust society? No, I hadn't known but I would hesitate to do that. I wouldn't know why they were there. Was it for the writing or the strange, gripping transactions? Besides, what if not one Proustian also liked Chandler? Would I want to be narrowed down to only Proust?
   He stopped in what I felt was the middle of the conversation and we went along about the business of laundry.
   I felt immensely better. I wished I could say, "Thank you for the chat; it will probably change the direction of my life. A sentence here and there can do that, you know." I thought I should at least say goodbye. I didn't say anything. I thought he had left so I sat down again as my clothes were drying.
   "Listen," I heard him say, "here is my card. If you ever feel like talking Proust, come on in."
   I looked at the card. It was engraved with the name of an antique shop, south, on the hill. The Graffiti Gallery.
   "I've been by your shop a million times! It's on the way to McDonald's. I can't believe it."
   "I know. You looked so different without your hat and your children but when you were talking about your class, I knew it was you. Every time you stopped at the window and pointed out that clock to your children, you had that same look. You don't know how many times I've thought of running out and giving you that clock! My assistant knows of you. She said if I so much as came to the door, you'd run off and find a new route to McDonald's."
   "It's true," I laughed. I told him I was glad for the card and the chat. I told him that I would never go, couldn't go in his shop but I  promised I would wave as I went by.
   Erik came home elated. He had gotten 32 valentines.
   It had been a good day. I was relieved.
   It was as if I found out twenty-eight years later that I was not the only one watching the snow fall on the night train to Paris. There had been no need for crying.

Somehow

SOMEHOW, IN A TIME OF TROUBLE

   A heavy snow had fallen for that early in the year. The milk had frozen and cracked the bottles on the back stoop. Soot had already settled on the sills when we got up. The snowflakes that I had seen drifting like lullabies during the night seemed by eight o'clock, when my brother and I set out for school, to have caught the news of wartime. They had piled up grey and lumpy, great newspaper wads thrown across each lawn.
   I walked with my older brother to school and I waited for him after school. I had to wait in the cold an hour and a half or walk home six blocks by myself. The choice was mine. I never gave it a second though. I waited. My brother was often taunted by a group of boys from his class that walked ahead of us. To have a tag-a-long little sister was considered unmanly. I could have spared him this abuse but when I mentioned that maybe he'd be better off without me, he said, "Aw, they're just jealous."
   We took our time on the way home, counting maples and looking for cardinals, but we didn't downright dawdle because we had to be back at 4:15 for Jack Armstrong. Also, my mother was alone and she was afraid of kidnappers. I figured when I saw the relief on her face that she was afraid someone would kidnap her. To be afraid for us was illogical as I was in the care of my brother, which was like saying I was in the care of my father. But since my father was away I didn't feel I really knew him; my brother's care seemed titanic in comparison to any father's.
   My brother was an unlikely looking hero but my hero, nevertheless. He was skeleton skinny, short, with dark brown hair that often looked more black than brown; it curled with Irish abandon and grew all over the place. His eyes were so dark I wasn't sure he had pupils as ordinary people should. He had too many teeth which, however, were evenly lined in a large mouth. During the winter, his skin was pale, never ruddy; he never blushed the way I did. Altogether, in winter, he had a ghostly appearance; he was a study in black and white like the woodcuts in our book of Pilgrim's Progress. His teachers remarked that he was meticulous, compulsive, industrious, delightfully well-mannered and a genius. I would have preferred to call him nice but genius was great, too.
   I liked having a genius around the house. It's handy not to have to know anything. Also, people outside the family assumed that because I was quiet and my brother's sister that I was a genius, too.
Being supposed a genius made up for too many teeth not evenly lined in a large mouth with straight-as-a-plank hair. I watched my reputation carefully by declining to speak and practising my handwriting. Kindergartners were supposed to only be able to print. I thought, though, if I could skip learning to print, I could save a lot of time. I was afraid if I went about printing at my customary pace that I would be so far behind by the second grade, I would have nothing but hours of homework. I would miss the Lone Ranger. I had extravagant long range plans which, among other things, definitely included the Lone Ranger.
   We rented part of Mrs. Elvira Hardy's house. The front porch had been boarded up to make a bedroom that led into the kitchen. Mrs. Hardy ate one meal a day at her Association Hall so she had no use for a kitchen but she needed the three bedrooms for her historical records. To use the bathroom we had to go out our back door, tear around to her front door and then upstairs. We had to be finished by the time she came home at 7:30. No getting up in the night. There was room on our porch-bedroom for a double bed and the radio. My mother was very cheerful about it saying that this was just all temporary. But actually, we liked it a lot. My mother had previously had servants when we lived in Brazil so it was quite a help to her that there was not too much to clean. She was able to bake biscuits, from an old family recipe, that were tasteless and hard. My mother had grown up on a farm in Indian Territory where the chores were suited to the child and she had never done anything but pick walnuts. My brother had learned to concoct spaghetti, though; we were well off. We ate early, not the usual nine o'clock we had been accustomed to, because of the possibility of Mrs. Hardy stopping in. Godliness was somehow related to leanness and starvation in her mind. Seeing us dipping biscuits into the sprawling spaghetti would have brought on a scathing sermon.
   We, also, after she came home, got under the covers to talk. We knew she'd eavesdrop and my brother was hopelessly subversive. Although he was a patriot and kept track of the campaigns on a huge map, he had outlandish notions of the future. He had discovered a book from out of the orient that extolled the virtues of pacifism. He said desperately that the war must be won but in our own private lives we were sworn to non-violence. When I say "we" I mean "me." My mother wouldn't hear of it. She thought we'd all go to jail. There was no way to contact my dad if we went to jail because he was at a top secret location in the Atlantic. One day, though, he sent us a clipping from Time magazine that told all about a top secret operation in the Atlantic, so he said we might as well write. My mother didn't care about writing but it made her a little more open minded about going to jail.
   My brother explained and explained at me how we were to resist should an incident come up. I didn't comment. As far as I was concerned it was a lot of malarkey. I was the smallest in my class. The teacher called me Concertina because, first of all, when the roll was called, I replied, "Present, Mrs. Lippincott," as though I were singing Mairzy Doats and Doesy Doats, and secondly because I was so tiny. I really wouldn't have had a moral choice in a confrontation but I was fascinated by his theories:
   "What happened to Jesus after He was in the Temple" he asked me. I shrugged. "How come no Bar Mitzvah? How come if He was an apprentice to Joseph He never even showed off with one little boat? He had to borrow. Didn't He take any pride in the work He'd been at for 18 years?" There were endless questions along the same line. And finally he popped the answer. "I'll tell you what happened. Joseph couldn't go through with this crazy idea of Mary's and he had Jesus kidnapped by Mongols. Jesus spent 18 years in China, that's what He did. But He couldn't tell anybody about it or they wouldn't listen to what He had to say. He had to be 'just-plain-folks' from Nazareth. And what did He say?"
   Oh golly, I thought. Am I supposed to be able to answer that? I was not up on these things.
   "I'll tell you what he said," my brother interrupted. "It's all here in Chinese. Love. Charity. And no hitting."
   He talked on this way until it was time for Inner Sanctum during which I remained under the covers. Lights out would come swiftly with thoughts in my mind of where we would all end up. My mother, in her place in the middle of the bed would sing dully, "Does you want the stars to play with or the moon to run away with...in your mammy's arms a creepin' soon you will be sleepin'" and would be the first one asleep.
   The late November snow staged the scene for finding out what this no hitting entailed.
   When I go out of school the snow seemed camel high. I waited on the steps imagining a ride to Jack Frost's glass palace. My brother was among the last to come from class. The six boys were ahead, throwing snowballs. I am convinced that I was not intended as a target but it all happened so quickly that everyone assumed instantly that it was an intentional blow, a challenge. One of the snowballs hit me in the eye with full force. I did not cry out although the pain was fierce because I was so scared. I saw the look of rage on my brother's face. Fighting six heavy opponents was going to get us massacred. Resisting was going to accomplish the same thing. I saw the grisly end coming as the boys surged toward us like a glacier turned into a flash flood. They couldn't have been more than four feet away when suddenly my brother flung his arms, scattering his books across a snow bank. He began shouting in a torrent of passion, "Holy Mother! Queen of the Angels! Strike down with thy divine touch the souls of mine enemies! Michael, King of all Glory! Cut away the eyes of these abominations you see before you and roll them to the gates of everlasting Hell. Spit our their hearts from your mercy and twist their veins of ice into a crown..." Throughout, he was spinning, rolling, flailing about in an on the snowbank, the wildest creature I had ever imagined. He looked like a character in a sped-up silent movie making angels in the snow. I wanted to laugh at this black and white extravaganza but the accompanying sound was terrifying, unearthly and came out in such a rush that I was paralyzed with fear. The boys watched a full minute and then took off like the Devil was after them.
   My brother and I sat in the snow awhile not saying anything. What would we have done if his attack hadn't worked? I never after had to find out.
   However, the lesson came in handy on a more minor scale when my son Erik was about four. I was saddled with a new neighbor's boy. The boy was a brat, a whiner, a temper-tantrum prone, unimaginative poor excuse for a human being. I did what I could but was getting nowhere much and the influence on Erik was devastating. My joy of a boy, my wild-haired Irishman, famed for riddles and long distance rock climbing was turning into a brat, a whiner, a temper-tantrum prone, unimaginative excuse for a human being.
   One afternoon, I was sitting in the bedroom which functions much like the old porch-bedroom only it manages to contain a rocker, a TV and a table where we have our spaghetti, in the same amount of space. I had had enough of both the boys. I eyed the bed. It is not a regular bed with a headboard, springs, slats and such refinements; it is two double mattresses on top of each other, very fine for jumping on. Usually it has eight or so bed pillows in differing cases, unarranged, which are not for having fights because someone might break one of my long cherished souvenirs. The pillows are for getting comfied-in and for constructing secret caves. The bed is about four feet from the rocker and had at that time a white spread; it looked very like a snowbank.
   With a speed I've never been know to have, I leaped onto the bed. I set myself like Joan of Arc on bent knee and with my "sword" swiped at the pillows and shouted, "Queen of the Angels! Hear my supplication! Spill milk over the heads of mine enemies and fling their teddies to the far corners of the earth! Take away this burden and spread your smile of glory over all! And then I cracked up laughing looking at those two faces. It worked. I only did it once but it was as though I had the power of the evil eye. I never needed it again.

   My brother came recently to see me after a long absence. He didn't recall his theories, the confrontation, Jack Armstrong, or even being a genius. He remembered our Saturday rides on the elevated when we went to the city, walked from one end of Grand Central to the other and then got back on. I had forgotten.
   It seems we pluck from our memories the moments that we need. And at that critical hour, when Erik was about four, with all flanks moving in on me, I needed a snowbank and a peace plan.

Listen to the Sound of Brown

A homework essay, circa 1976.

LISTEN TO THE SOUND OF BROWN

   I've learned something. No, not the usual profoundly unsettling, earthshaking something that I suspected all along--this bit of learning was quite ordinary and may explain everything.

   It came during the Cubs game on Sunday. Vince Scully mentioned how amazing it was that Burt Hooton could pitch such a good game at night and be completely off during the day. Hooton made me think of hoot-owl which made me think of eyes which made me think of seeing which made me think of Rachmaninoff. With me, the direct route of thinking about things always includes Rachmaninoff. He once said that the note F# (sharp) was a sunny day. I thought he was wrong about that. F# is clearly a great grey nor'easter. I didn't realize until I was thumbing through Psychology Today at the same time as Vince was commenting on Hooton, that Rachmaninoff and I are on the same side, included in a rather small crazed group known as synesthetes. I've resisted being put in crazed groups but there it is in black and white. Rachmaninoff and I hear in color. I thought everybody did. The importance of F# is not that we disagree as to what color it is but that we hear it as a color at all.

   I can blame a lot on color hearing. It's called synesthesia and it's what makes a three syllable word, for me, brilliant blue and what a five letter word its touch of umber.

   I've always had a penchant for changing people's names. I never analyzed it; I just did it because I liked to. I've been going over some of the ones I've changed, what I changed them to, and the ones I've left alone. A pattern is emerging. Is it conditioning that causes me to avoid the name Liz and forces me call Ross nothing but Ross? Or is it that "Ross" has bunches of green and "Liz" has streaks of black and yellow? Will there never be a Liz I can like? Is Cey a sure winner because "Cey" is red, white, and blue? Is Brunswick all that I think or is she illusion--silvery purple Brunswick? Did Smith become popular because it's so creamy beige?

   Synesthesia would explain why I have a near mania for certain words like "foolish" with its tiny sprinkles of lavender and "kilometer." I was pleased when I read the country might go metric. "Kilometer" is a worthwhile import; it brings pink peppermint stripes and orange California poppies to all the highways of America.

   According to the article in Psychology Today, this crossing of the senses is found in many children and lost to a lot of adults. Maybe that's why I find adults dreary. Maybe that's why I'm delighted when I find somebody who knows what in Corona I'm talking about. One of the examples of synesthetic authors given was Kipling with his "The dawn came up like thunder." One of my favorites!

   This is all leading me to reappraise some of my likings. It's an interesting avenue of investigation but one I'm not going to ponder at length. Or, at least, not now. It's a foggy, stormy afternoon here in Manhattan Beach. I'd rather be playing a little Rachmaninoff. Something in F# to match the day.

Anniversary

Written on the Judah trolley, San Francisco, 1965 after reading that Emily Bronte polished the bannister on the day she died as if still waiting, expecting a special guest.

~~~~~~~~~

I have been polishing, arranging, readying.
And I am tired, grateful to go on
but tired.
Today is the day, approximately
(I didn't think to mark it)
that I decided it would happen.
Ten years, and through all the changes,
chaos and disappointments
sifting around me,
I have kept polishing, arranging,
practising, my daily turns
heartily met,
never letting down,
for who can guess the moment?
Today, I am sad that you are late.
But recognizing that
at this very minute
I may hear you on the steps,
I run to cut fresh flowers.

Clipper Street

I watch the clouds like great tarnished chariots

rushing courses to the sea

and wonder if some grey-faced charioteer

might in grand swooping look, kidnap me

from my little room and, boldly,

charter tall bay ships, silent escorts

for a trip past sky and land, past wind and will.

No my room is all, my life without regret.

Abandoned voyages not mine, and yet--

December

December 1, 1961

A calendar of memories

in these few fragments--

patched and quickly-written

but full of thought and love,

a measure of how I spent

the swift November days.

Fame

This was written on Clipper Street in San Francisco, 1964. I wrote two versions, one with a Spanish tone and the other with a Scottish.

FAME

I ached for fame this morning, not for sake
of notoriety or wealth or way
of living sumptuous days, but just
so I could speak to you and say, quite softly,
"I like Ramon, do you?
How about some orange in your tea?"
And you would nod and move more brusquely on,
"Oh, yes, that's very nice, I must agree."
A little fame and I could call you back,
"I have zinnias fresh bloomed
and jam potato buns, a recipe from Potosi."
And you'd reply, distracted, "Thank you, no."
At least my fame would bring respectful ears.
And I have many thoughts to tell you now,
thoughts born in moon-rocked gardens,
silver-spooned, which, grown,
reflect the doom of wild field buds--
ungathered, they must wither with the rest.
I ached for fame this morning;
long summer's dawn
had brought scarce dew to clasp each mission bell.
I had no way to show you, nor ever will.

Angra do Heroismo; 1944

Published in The Christian Science Monitor

October 27, 1982

Angra do Heroismo; 1944

Autumn. Full moon night.

Barely visible on the horizon,

stars spell your name in the dark sky.

I can read all the letters.

They are like carving on a tree,

uneven, enduring, deeply etched

and only seen by one who looks

for such things.

The earth is patient in its turnings.

Quietly, I, too wait for a winter night

to show another set of stars.

The houses of heaven will advance;

the message, two names, will emerge.

The night sky will tell the tale

to those of us who look for such things.

Entreaty

ENTREATY

The time is at hand;

the hour is late.

Come, read with me

a little while

these psalms.

Tell me not of other things

to do,

of problems small and large,

chattering with

distracted eyes,

listening to the noise

and commotion

of urgent matters that are

diminished as you talk,

to be replaced by

other crises

beyond the hope

of your concern.

Store up your nervous

flights from here to there

and pour those energies

together in quiet wonder.

Be still in your wandering.

Imagine back to a time

of the beginnings

when the Earth's

great canopy gave shelter.

Think on the constellations,

the seas, the dim-lit land,

and loosen this moment

to all eternity.

Come,

just now,

for a little while.

Vilas, N.C. 1985

Across the Miles

ACROSS THE MILES

My dad used to say that the reason I had such remarkable ESP was because he couldn't afford the phone bill. And this explains to a degree my failure at a star-spangled career.

My dad would have liked me to be a photo journalist, an anthropologist, an indexer at Tell es-Sa'idyeh; anything to get me out of the house and preferably away from the phone. He didn't encourage marriage as he felt it was just asking for trouble and what he wanted from me was a little quiet and a few letters. I liked the idea of marriage much better but having tried it, I had to agree with my dad that Greenwich Village to Phoenix, Arizona collect for advice was not exactly what we all had in mind.

So it was that, after I suddenly turned up with all my earthling belongings, a few months family counseling commenced and it was decided that I should try my hand at a career. In other words, I was booted out.

To give me support and because she was fond of a lark, my mother accompanied me cross country on the Greyhound bus to Washington, D.C. She installed me in a small room at a quaint Victorian hotel on Connecticut Avenue and after tea, she left.

We were very optimistic and pleased with ourselves and that same afternoon, I went to see the awesome building of the Dept. of State where on Monday morning I was to being my career. On my way back, I walked past the White House. I went all the way around it and came back again past the White House guard. He looked at me questioningly and I couldn't help but say that it was just so beautiful, I was going around it again.

After that day on my way home in the autumn cold, I would walk all the way around the White House before going up Connecticut Avenue. The White House guard would smile and say a friendly hello, asking how things were in the typing pool.

Things were actually very bad in the typing pool. I was in the Cuban section. I had to read letter sent in by Cuban families pleading to come to the United States. I had to put their names on a card, translate their reasons for wanting to come to the States, and who would be responsible for them. The average by the other typists was 230 cards a day. I did 50, not because I couldn't type but because the letters were appallingly sad.

Mr. Warzovski came shaking his head. One could not be fired from the typing pool but on the other hand, one could not spend the day crying over letters. And then there was the business of my having made an error. One mistake in spelling the family's name and it wouldn't be able to come. Didn't I realize what I had done? I tried to explain to Mr. Warzovski that I thought the family had misspelled its own name, (as though spelling Smith with two m's.) and had patched it up so that they all could come. What was he going to do with me? He decided I should be promoted; I could be his assistant and not type cards. One day I could have his jog and all of Cuba would then be under my wing. I could go meet everybody on a big ship and bring ices for all the nieces and nephews.

I could not be transferred or promoted till I had been on the job 90 days so Mr. Warzovski and I did the best we could. During my lunch hour, I would take my can of Metracal and go sit by the planters to watch the elevators.

We were going along fine when one morning, Mr. Warzovski came in bewildered.

“Stop typing,” he said. “Nobody will be coming. The President says, 'Stop typing.'”

For two days, we all sat. When I watched the elevators, the doors would open to reveal ashen,shaken faces.

When I walked around the White House, the guard was busy. Everywhere there was a sense of activity and dead quiet. Crisis was a word that was said as one would say cancer and seemed equally terminal. The radio was unbearable and grocery stores opened with empty shelves.

I thought of all the times I had been in danger, of planes shot down, houses bombed, timed devices dismantled by my enterprising brother; and I started wondering what this career thing was all about. What was the point of it if what I was doing was just a way to grow into an old maid in a quaint Victorian townhouse. What was the necessity of being so far away from everyone who knew me just to have a title after my name? All those Cubans I had cried over; what had I done for any of them?

Two days after the Cuban crisis, I walked past the White House guard. He was very cheery.

“It's all right, now,” he said.

“Yes, it is,” I agreed. I told him I was going home, back to Arizona.

“You just got there,” he objected.

Yes, and I might have taken twenty years to find out I was in the wrong place. I walked up Connecticut Avenue, gathered my few earthly belongings, and headed for the Greyhound bus.

When I arrived at my dad's house, he said, “I was sure hoping you'd turn up. Whose idea was this about a career, anyway? I was going to call you on the phone but decided to save myself some money. Just waited up instead.”

Keeping Posted

This was written for my voice teacher, Donna Underhill, and published in the Pierian Spring Winter issue, 1969.

KEEPING POSTED

In this book of fifty art songs

there is one you used to sing

about the morning flowers.

The song has your markings--

to sustain, and pause,

linger and fly to the high head tones,

to murmur, hum, and swell.

You made much of the words

I remember, singing the phrases

which you spun into my ears

with the incessant magical touch

that made me feel anointed,

knighted, brought from the grave.

A friend has written me,

gossipy items mostly, about everyone,

and news of what has happened to you.

Reading her letter I wept,

wanting to take all the flower fields

your voice had ever hurled into my mind

and throw them half around the world

to splash you with their perfume

and my tears.

Great Undertakings

This is another convent school story, this time set in Panama.

Great Undertakings

“You will, of course, do your best; won't you?”

I wasn't sure. It seemed to be out of my range. To sit in the quiet sewing room knowing that for an entire school year I was to work on one corner of a tablecloth, to stitch one rose from a million tiny markings—to do this alone, unsupervised, and well-trusted-- frightened me. There was no allowance for mistakes; the undersides of the cloth were to be as perfect as the reverse. A lesson was involved in this, something of the notion that there was no hiding from the Lord, or, more importantly, there was to be no shame in any endeavor. An undertaking should sparkle in its worth from every angle.

“If you work diligently every day, one sunny afternoon in May it will be finished and you can keep it always to show you never slackened.”

But what if I did? There it would be to remind me that I had slackened. Was it possible for me not to slacken? How would I ever keep my mind on it? I couldn't keep my mind on anything for long. It wandered off by itself so much, the least little word shaking it loose.

Sister Prisca continued her instructions. “I know you will do nicely. The others will be looking to you when it comes to the end of the year. You are the only American and we are very proud. Sister Marta says you are certain to get the good conduct prize, too."

I felt a moment of happiness because the prize was beautiful, then remorse because good conduct was easy for me. It was not like actually doing, more like the absence of doing. Bad conduct involved daring and concentration and wanting to stir up hornets' nests. As I saw it, bad conduct was not much fun, not compared to sitting in the alcove watching the swallows and reading Treasure Island. If only the tablecloth could be as easy as good conduct; if only it could be less long-term and not so constantly expecting all my effort. Why, because I was a foreigner, did I have to be an example?

I was thinking this past Sunday about the tablecloth. I have kept it with me. I never finished it. The part I did is done tidily but the failure of what I didn't do is clear. It has been a regret that I couldn't finish. However, on this same last Sunday, I thought about the tablecloth and what I was doing now; I came to a new conclusion.

I was sitting in the park. I was wishing that I could write something special this week because it was an anniversary for me: my first year at prose would be up in five days. I never dreamed a year ago that I'd still be here and that what I'd learn in Burt's class was nothing about writing and a great deal about myself. I never expected it to be an odyssey, both fanciful and deadeningly true into my past. At that time, my past was of no interest to me. Simple curiosity brought me to the Village. I wanted a look at a writer, a chance for the fun of it, to see if the man matched the humor column in the Los Angeles Times. It was a lark, a diversion, like staying up on Christmas Eve to interview Santa, to see if he liked his job or not. I had concocted in my mind a person and wanted to find out if the shoe fit. I thought that this writer might be very fat with small feet, strangely deep-blue eyes and bushy eyebrows; possibly he would speak with an ever so slight Russian accent and he would not be serious on any subject whatsoever. I thought I would be uncomfortable in his presence because I didn't know any jokes, was not chic, liberated or well-informed. The catalog said to bring along a sample of work so I decided to try to write something funny and careless. I sensed I was in trouble. Despite my high spirits, the writing came out too merry and at the same time, too serious. I couldn't figure out what was wrong. I fussed and fretted and made a pact that I'd go to one class and quit. One class would give me my glimpse and who needs writing, anyhow? I'd rather read.

May 9^th, 1974, was as Walter Cronkite used to say, “A day which alters and illuminates our lives.”

The first piece read at that first class was awful, just dreadful, as was the second and third. But the fourth was not and that is apparently when my odyssey began. The story was strong but alien to my way of life. I felt as though I had been beamed down from a planet where the inhabitants live in the rafters of merry-go-rounds. Burt said he liked the story; it was good. I wanted to say, “No, no you mustn't accept that. It isn't good.” It was then that I had an odd feelig of having some sort of mission, something that needed explaining. I was also nagged by the impossibleness of it. Looking at Burt and seeing not the fat man with the jokes but a no-nonsense leaness made me think of Sister Prisca. He seemed to expect the best or why bother. Well, I would do what I could but not for long.

Each week I wrote and rewrote my homework a dozen times. I had no idea where I was headed or what I was trying to say. In class I was defensive and didn't like to be asked my opinion on anything. What do creatures from merry-go-rounds know but the spinning and the music? I became preoccupied with the subject of failure. I began to examine myself and my life closely. Did I really have to take the blame for giving up on marriage? Or was it that you can't plunk a gopher into the middle of a river and hope for happiness? Should I take credit for the succes I've had with my children? Or was it a matter of inevitability—give dandelions a chance and they grow jubilantly. Would it have been different if they were different? Was the fact that I am indispensable at kindergarten a proof of grandiose educational schemes? Or is it that kindergarten is the ideal place to sing and clown and talk about Beethoven. Would it be better ,as Scott said, to write a children's book because, “You always have a moral and you don't like facts.” Or is adulthood the very place for lessons and fantasy? I was chronically plagued with uncertainty and fitfulness but underneath it all I knew there was no getting around it. I did have a mission and something to explain.

In the last few days of my year being up, it has all come in a rush together. Maybe it was Erica Jong rubbing me the wrong way; maybe it was Ross and her, “To this day, I wear shoes when I go out to play.” Maybe it was Burt. I'm not sure. I do know that now I can safely say I will be true to myself and know who myself is

The lessons of my childhood are that I believe in excellence, in diligence, in good conduct because I prefer it, in politeness, and whimsy. The lesson I learned in class is that despite excellence, diligence, good intentions and humor, I can fail. And survive and fail and succeed and fail again. Often I can fail through no fault of mine.

I look at the rose and I look at my stack of stories and I feel that perhaps Sister Prisca and I were on the same side. She only asked me for my best. For her, it was the undertaking of something grand that counted. She never intended that I assume the burden of judging. Thinking back, I'm sure the harshness I have brought to bear on myself she would find unbecoming.

I am ready not to sit back, to rest from my mission for awhile. I am ready to climb back up into the rafters and hear the merry-go-round once again in motion. There are grand undertakings ahead and I am glad.

It has been a dazzling, dangerous, funny, tormenting odyssey, a year like no other. If anybody asks me how I liked Burt's class and why I stayed so long, I will say, “Because it was wonderful and I needed the time to finish up my rose.”

"Some Fostering Star"

SOME FOSTERING STAR

When I was seven years old, Time and Circumstance aligned themselves with Destiny to present me with a comely wonder of a year.

The Second World War was over. Jerusalem was still under the British protectorate. There was danger but it had not yet arrived at our house. And at our house, there was a great effort being made to win all sides to friendship, to avoid this unnecessary danger. My mother and father were Americans and unbelievers but they felt that Jerusalem was indeed the Holy City and not to be defiled. My brother had gone to Arab school and then to a Catholic monastery school. The latter suited him better. It suited my father exactly. My father became friends with the Franciscan brothers, a very serious though jolly lot. Consequently, our house was always full of monks. This would have annoyed our neighbors, as we lived in the Jewish sector, except for the fact that the house was also always full of neighbors.

Since it would not be acceptable for me to attend the nearby school, I was sent instead across town to a British Catholic convent school. It was the chance choice of this school that I consider fortuitous. It shaped in the few months I was there, my attitude towards education, reinforced my suspicions on the question of my fellowman, and in moments of despair, remains in memory to remind me that “exquisite” is not an inappropriate word to combine with “Life.” Had I not had this experience, I might never have been able to pin down why I am so at odds with what people generally refer to as a good school. I would not have understood why I must throw the progressives, the reactionaries, the liberals, the conservatives, the Krishnas, the Montessories into the same bin and I wouldn't not have had the handy measuring stick by which I judge how to divide schools into jam and stained glass windows as opposed to those with no jam and stained glass windows.

My day began early. At 6:30 a.m., my dad would drive me to school. He had no use for conversation with a seven year old, so he drove me chauffeur style. I would lie down in the back seat, my feet propped so that from the outside they looked like quotation marks sticking up over the Great Seal of the United States. I would sing 27 verses of “I Knew an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly” to get us going and then I'd be quiet. We drove in a westerly direction in such a slow manner that I felt as though we were towing the sun. By 7:30, I was there. The school day began with the bells of the angelus which for the others had been at 6. I had a dispensation to come at 7:30 because I was not from a Catholic family, and because of my having been recently ill. I cannot remember the exact order of the day. I do remember the content. I had spelling, English money, astronomy, penmanship, geology, anatomy, English kings, solfeggio, drama, piano, philosophy, French, Latin and geography. Each subject had its own teacher. There was much to be learned and learned with excellence. I was in the second grade but was not allowed to write in script because I had not perfected printing. If it took fifty years for me to perfect printing, I was entitled to fifty years of practice; under no circumstances was I to go on with any task till I had mastered its forerunner. This was extremely difficult for me because I had not attended first grade and kindergarten had made no mention of excellence as a way of life. I also discovered that I am by nature sloppy. I rebelled only once, during spelling. The word was “examination” and I thought that was a bit much for a seven-year-old. I grumbled to the Sweet Lamb of Jesus. No one else would have listened. I told Him I had no choice but to cheat, which I did.

Penmanship, in my case printing, was done in French. One page to one word. I remember painstakingly drawing “la maison” in small even letters for a solid hour. The page when done was very pretty; all the “l's” were like chimneys lined up with the flat “maisons” making a tranquil picture of houses and streets.

Classes were shuffled around from room to room during the day. My piano lesson was in a very dark alcove where the sound on the stone walls echoed disapprovingly. Up until this time, I had never been punished, never spanked, never scolded. The first time Sister Ethelberta's ruler came tapping down on my hand, I screamed and ran to the chapel and cried out for St. Michael to grant me refuge. Sister Ethelberta strolled in calmly and explained that the piano was an instrument of hosannahs. I was not to touch it without reverence. I had made a mistake but that was not what bothered her. I had been neglectful. I could not, she said, make music if I had no music in my heart. I made mistakes after that but the ruler never came to Sister Ethelbertas's aid because I never came to the alcove without a sense of awesome responsibility.

In the afternoon Sister Marta read to us. We could have read to ourselves but it was an entirely different, a wonderfully cherishing feeling to be read to instead. The stories were full of dragons and witches' spells and waking dreams.

There seemed to be a constant movement throughout the day in the sense that the shuffling of the classes provided a kind of swelling and receding hum and rhythm. I felt very often that we were all in a dance where we each took turns pirouetting and keeping still, bowing and rising.

At four o'clock, the whole school met at a long table in a center chamber; it was the kind of hall room that one would expect to house a spiral staircase. It didn't. Instead it was a high ceilinged wide place with the sole purpose of showing to advantage several immense stained glass windows. I sat across from the window of Santa Rita in whose forehead was embedded a diamond-shaped chunk of metal the color of pewter; her hands were across her chest, turned outward to show the embeddings in her palms. From each piece of metal came several drops of blood. From her eyes came several drops, also of blood.

The table was of rough cedar with no cloth. Tea was served in delicate cups without saucers. The tea was steamy and strong; there were two slices of toast and in front of each place, a small dish of jam.

We sat in tall cedar chairs. Before we began, we had ten minutes of meditation. We were permitted to close our eyes or not as we chose but we were not allowed to speak. By four o'clock, I was so tired from the exhilaration of study and weak from lack of food that I could hardly sit up. The chair supported me. I generally kept my eyes open and stared at Santa Rita. She seemed lonely yet content. She was enchantingly beautiful; her sacrifice was so large compared to mine that by the time the bell rang to eat, I had given up wanting to. Until I tasted it. I had never, before this school, had jam. Sugar had been so rationed as to be nonexistent. We had a half-hour to drink our tea and eat and again, meditate. I used every second of it tasting the jam. I pushed it slowly with my tongue into every crevice in my teeth. The tiny fibers and seeds I would force into a pattern—a relief map of the land I knew. I tried to always make the Jordan run clear across the top in an unbroken winding line. The Dead Sea on the right side. Just over a molar was the last to be swallowed.

There was something special about the waiting, the windows, the tiredness and the fact that I was never disappointed in the taste of the jam. It was always equally new-found.

I haven't had jam since the night we had to leave Jerusalem. It wasn't saying goodbye, though, to that radiant time. It was only the circumstances weren't quite right. The jam was available but I refused it. I have not since those days had such an alignment, where time and the windows came together with a little dish of jam; or have I?

Recently in class, during the lulling hum of being read to, I felt my back straightening up and heard a quiet shuffling on the drive like the sound of novices on their rounds. I once or twice closed my eyes and reached tentatively to touch the rough wood table. I opened my eyes slowly wondering what I would see.

I was asked last week, why I have come to the Village to take the same class three times. I answered inexplicably, “For the windows and the jam.”

April

APRIL

Down the road, a child practices

“Rustle of Spring” on her grandmother's Chickering.

The small farmhouse windows are propped

by foot and a half split logs;

her arpeggios reach our cabin as if

a part of the night's programme.

The cats sit on the porch rail

contemplatively, a model audience

grateful for the warm companionly air

which brings a crowd—moles, robins,

tree frogs.

Easter here is a sneak-up-behind kind of joy;

red leaf buds suddenly opened,

creek violets in a “Surprise!” pose,

juncos twittering at our

slow-to-see handicaps.

I hum along. Spring rustles in

and out of Beth Amanda's fingers

and joins the quiet roar

of the land reborn.

Published in BRANCHES Volume Five 1990

Prognosis

PROGNOSIS

I have not yet built up a natural immunity.

I have not yet grown my leathery

layers of thickened skin.

It's forty-eight years now

I have watched the mole come out of his burrow,

the sun triumphantly, audaciously

exit center stage, the cherry blossoms

noise around the coming of Spring

and still, I have to catch my breath,

force the lump in my throat to

hide itself somewhere less noticeable

and fret at my trembling fingers.

“Be calm! You have seen this

so many times.”

There seems to be no poultice to draw out

the distracted eye, no liniment to soothe

the ache of sleeplessness.

Perhaps next year.

Some maladies need only be outgrown.

Perhaps next year I can look with a clear eye

at the scarred land and simply sigh;

the stars will not stab my heart.

Perhaps next year

I can say in even tones with steady gaze,

“Nice sunset, isn't it?” then casually turn away.

I am told, considering my age,

bone frame and heredity,

the chances of such a change

are slim: one in a near zillion, statistically.

Today, watching the cloud front

forming over Crabtree Meadows,

I'm inclined to believe

the chances are closer to zero.

A Poem for My Mother

Published in the Cold Mountain Review 1986

Central Avenue and 19^th Street

We were on this same street, I believe,

thirty years ago

on a summer day so

similar to this one

that I feel I could turn to you and

your hair would be vivid auburn

as it was then and

we would talk of Hilda and Mary Frances

as though they were fresh acquaintances.

How time flies and stands still

all in a quick breath!

It is an old Hopi thought I have heard--

events circling rather than counted out

one after another.

It is a thought I like.

For a moment at least you are here

who have been so long absent

and what might have been has yet a chance to occur.

Oh brave possibilities

on such a glorious day.

Soundings

SOUNDINGS

I heard a crackling sound and thought briefly a branch was too heavy with peaches and was breaking. Then there was the distinct strum of a country song. Surprised, I held my breath and tried to catch the swift refrain. “And it goes on and on watching the river run; further and further from things that we've done, leaving them one by one. And we have just begun watching the river run, listening, learning and yearning. Run river run.”

The song had to be coming from Old Mr. Briar's room but how could that be? I looked over the next yard and up to see if he was out on his small deck.

I saw someone I didn't know at his window and realized with sickening certainty that the new neighbors had arrived. Old Man Briar had not come to say goodbye because, after all, the family was only shifting down to the beach and I would see them as often as ever. There would be no need for goodbyes. Still, the metallic brightness, the twang were like the popping of champagne at a bon voyage party signalling a goodbye fore me. I felt as though the Briars were sailing that morning for Katmandu without the rush of hugging and cries of, “Be sure to write,” such a final note had that simple river song.

What would my garden be without Mr. Briar's music?

The first time I heard his music was the week we moved in. On a foggy November day, when the children were sleeping fitfully with bronchitis, I had tiptoed outside to look at the autumn sky and feel the crisp sea wind. Tired and alone, I felt I had made another wrong turning and wondered how many wrong turnings I would make before I was ever able to live competently. I saw something pink at the back of the garden and ventured to see what the little beacon was. It was a wild rose protected by long neglected ivy. As I reached to touch it, there was a soft swirl of faint music seemingly above me in the mist; I stopped to listen. It was something familiar and ethereal in its tune.

“There is no one around,” I thought. “Everybody on the street works during the day.” I sat down on an overturned wheelbarrow. “It's Don Giovanni!” One of my dad's favorites. “My mind must be going with this helplessness and I am dredging up my childhood memories to keep the shreds together.” I thought of my father whistling calmly on the way to Damascus when we were stopped by the British who were checking the road for land mines. I was driven to distraction by his whistling; he always whistled Mozart when we were in danger and we always got through by the skin of our teeth. Later, the whistling took a short cut in my brain and came to mean, “Don't worry.”

A quick blast of voices made me look up and I saw an old man was opening a door of a small attic room perched on top of a tall cedar house past the Armato's bungalow. There was a narrow deck where he stood gazing at the fog banks and looking about the neighborhood as if he were spotting whales. I waited to see if he would see me. He did and he waved. Happily, I waved back and shouted even thought I knew it would wake the children, “That's Don Giovanni! One of my dad's favorites!” He waved again and walked on around the deck.

During the next weeks, I found out that he was Old Man Briar, as opposed to Middle Mr. Briar and Young Mr. Briar. I was told Old Man Briar was 87, deaf as a lamp post practically and a great source of irritation. The comments I heard varied in intensity but were in accord as to for or against. Because Middle Mr. Briar was a likable fellow and didn't want people complaining at him, Old Man Briar played his opera only during the day. I decided to write Old Man Briar a note and tell him how his music had made me feel at home, how it had comforted me through the bad bronchitis and that, although Mozart was my dad's favorite, I leaned more to lieder. After that there was always music when I went out in my yard, but no Mr. Briar on the deck.

He came one day with roses and spoke very formally. He asked me if I sang and I said, yes, and would he like to come in. I'd play the piano for him. He declined.

Every once in awhile, I would see him with his son in the car and wave. He never offered to lend a record or give me a ride to school when he saw me with an armload of music. He would just say, “Play well!” and even though it didn't matter, as the piano at school was half mute, I would play my best.

Last November, on a foggy crisp day, he was walking his dog as I was checking my mailbox which sits out by the road. He stopped to say hello and saw my eyes light up when I pulled out the mail.

“Something special have you, Mrs. Wilder?”

“Yes!” I said hurriedly.

“Well then, go out into your back yard and read it there.”

I was freezing but I said I would, just so I could get on with it.

The wind was strong and I had to pick up pages that were scattering. As I did, I heard the slow beginnings of Tristan and Isolde. Something special. He had not played that before. I looked up involuntarily and there was Old Mr. Briar smiling and waving. I waved back and he went inside leaving the door open. I must have spent an hour and a half listening and reading and then I came in to warm myself up and discovered I wasn't cold.

How has June come so soon? Halfheartedly, I pick some roses ostensibly to take to Mr. Briar the Elder all the while knowing he isn't there. I will give them to the new people and I will see what this newness will be.

Their front door is open. I hear the song filtered as if sung in a mountain tunnel. “Guess he'd rather be in Colorado. Guess he'd rather spend his time out where the sky looks like a pearl after a rain...”

I am angry and sad. I am hurt with the comings and goings, the centers not holding, the far flung friends. Is there such a place as being in Colorado? Can anything stay for just a little while? I turn away but someone is speaking. She is saying, “How sweet!” and “Won't you have a cup of coffee?” and “Are you the neighbor who is home all day?”

“Mostly. No thank you.” I reply, not mentioning my five mile walks.

“Mr. B. said you were the only one on the block home all day and you are hard of hearing. I'm so sorry but it is reassuring for us because Tom likes to practice with the window open up in the attic. Nobody seems to mind Cathy's guitar but Tom's French horn and his opera overtures drives them crazy.”

I pretend I haven't heard much of what she's explained and say quickly, “Nice to meet you! I have to be going. Play as loud as you want. It won't bother me." I will feign deafness whenever I see her. In the afternoons, I will take my letters out into the garden and think on comings and goings, of far away friends. Perhaps on a cold November day, Tom will play Tristan and Isolde and in between will be the newness of country strumming and Cathy singing, “Friends, I will remember you, think of you, pray for you. And when another day is through, I'll still be friends with you.”

Creed

Creed 1968

They try to make me believe

God is not good,

that quietly, in the night,

He sends His angels

to smite the women

in purdah, to smother

the little children who

know nothing but

the fear of Baal, to silence

the strong, misguided

heads of tribes who

dimly understand

that the sun is akin

to fire in its warmth

and power

and magical in its

power to hasten growth

of their beloved figs.

But I have counted stars

on a winter night

and know that the

storehouses of snow

hold majestic beauty

and wonderful terror.

Oh, yes! To do thy will!

And yet, He has led me

who am unworthy of being called something

a little higher than the antelope

(oh graceful unsinning creature) beside

magnificent waters and

brought me through

a treacherous plain.

Can this be the one called Yahweh

who sent the Prince of Peace,

the Morning Star,

the gentle teacher of His father's Love?

They try to make me understand.

I cannot.

The proof is in His works;

this document unconnected

to His sweet antic creations.

I will believe in the Seen

and the Unseen

and turn away from the

chatter of men.

Hosannah, Praise

to the All-Good, All-Caring,

unnameable.