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.

for Margaret

Margaret 1985

“She passed away after a lengthy illness.”

It was terminal from the first symptoms

but denial was the only tool she had then.

Later, an array of instruments

and diagnoses

glittered her days.

Between times was a somnambulent

ether stage

lasting years.

Could it have been prevented?

Informed, could she have been

pronounced cured

or at least, “In remission?”

Possibly. I myself don't think so.

Some come into the world

too vulnerable, unformed,

too heeding, too willing to believe.

For them this Death by Romance strikes mortally.

There is no, “Taking strength.”

They waste away, often

with delicate charm,

minute by minute

like water in a terracotta pot

until we read with sadness

(what could we have done?)

that they are gone.

Cathecism

CATHECISM

We were early that Friday because we had expected to be detoured by the barbed wire that usually prevented our going past the King David. We were pleased to be able to go on through but I was also anxious, wondering where the grim barrier would turn up next.

My dad was driving and how I happened to be riding along, I can't remember. My dad was not fond of taking me anywhere then because that year I was particularly solemn. I couldn't talk because of a tumor which had grown on my vocal chords. I was very scrawny because I wouldn't eat the dehydrated eggs. And I had the eerie habit of letting my hair fall about my face in such a way that I could squint out without, so I believed, being seen. I was six years old.

My brother was twelve and my dad and I were picking him up at Terra Sancta College which didn't seem to be a college at all but a monastery school. It was in a westerly direction if I have my navigation correct and a good long ride from our house in Talpiot, Jerusalem.

Since we were early and there was nothing to discuss, my dad told me to contemplate the doors of Terra Sancta College and promptly dozed off. They were magnificent doors. Urged on by their beauty and the terrifying sound of my dad's snoring, I quietly got out of the car and went up to touch them. The wood was very hard and smelled sweet like the rosaries sold by the Wailing Wall. I was pretending that I was a leper come to be healed when the left door with the carving of St. Jude opened and there stood Father Anthony.

I knew it was Father Anthony because he had been many times to our house to try to shake my father's atheism and to share a spirited talk. Every time I had seen him, I had excused myself as politely as I could. It seemed to me that the crucifix which hung from the cord of his dark robe was as large as I was and I was sure if I didn't stop thinking bad thoughts, I was going to end up hanging on it with my bones all turned to silver.

“Ah, it is Zeppha. Where is your father?” he asked.

I motioned with my hand to the car and noticed that my fingers were still in my leper pose, so I squinted.

“Well,” Father Anthony said. “Let us leave him to his meditation and I will show you where your brother does his very special work.”

I followed obediently down long tiled corridors. The regular tapping of his sandals and the shuffle of my shiny green leather shoes made a sound to me like plainsong and I felt centuries old.

We went up three flights of a spiral staircase and down to a large room which turned out to be the chemistry laboratory. Adjacent was the church with its baroque bell tower and flat roof.

Father Anthony arranged some beakers and sorted a few ingredients with the same delicate grace he used in touching the chalice at Mass. With a satisfied air, he carefully gave me directions as though examining me on the nature of God.

I was to go out the window with my crystal flask, climb into the bell tower, blow through the clear glass reed and say hello to Jerusalem.

The height of my nook was exhilarating. I could see the Dome of the Rock to the east and far south, the glazed serenity of the Dead Sea. I began to blow and millions of tiny shimmering bubbles sprang out. I looked at Father Anthony in amazement. In all of my bad thoughts, I had never thought of anything so irreverent as sitting in the bell tower blowing bubbles all over Jerusalem. I stayed a long time and when the bubbles were finished, I watched birds follow them.

Every Friday after that, Father Anthony would come and take me through the same ritual. Until one Friday that will remain always in my mind as a lesson too hard in the winning.

We arrived early and my dad dozed off quickly. Eagerly, I let myself in the doors of Terra Sancta College and went up to the laboratory. Father Anthony was saying his prayers. He didn't look at me but paced the rows between the high tables slowly. I could tell from the tap of his sandals that there was no song in his steps. I waited patiently for about fifteen minutes and then he turned and said gravely, “Oh, Zepphita. There will be no bubbles today.”

I left. I sat on the spiral staircase until it was time to meet my brother and tried to understand. I was certain Father Anthony was the meanest man alive and yet, who but Father Anthony had let us go into the bell tower in the first place?

I never blew bubbles again, there or anywhere. Sometimes, my children on a windy summer's day will bring out their bubble pipes. And as I watch the romping and squealing, I can see the silver crucifix and hear my dad's snoring and feel the smoothness of a slender glass reed that taught me the lesson of freedom.

And I am grateful.

The Play's Da Tin

THE WRITING LIFE

I bribed my mother—if she didn't loan me the fee money for class, I wouldn't put her in any more stories. It was the perfect threat. Lately I had noticed that her anecdotes were coming fast and furious and since I'd heard them all before, I was beginning to wonder if these recaps were for my benefit or if there was an ulterior motive. There was. My mother, and many of my friends have pinned their hopes on me as a route to immortality. It was clear to me that they had picked the wrong horse but it didn't seem to matter.

My Hungarian friend stopped by on Monday. I was in tears over Susan and Arnie. Last Thursday, at the same time that I was listening to my story of Susan and Arnie and thinking I should write something long about them, about their childhood in Brooklyn, Susan was filing for divorce. I'd have to scrap that story. In fact, as I helped Arnie over the weekend, I had decided to scrap writing stories altogether for awhile.

“Vait joosta mint,” my Hungarian friend said. She had only a mild interest at best in Arnie and Susan but scrapping story writing was like telling her that her portfolio had been ransacked. How could I do such a thing? The problem, of course, was that I couldn't swear off writing stories when I hadn't put her in one yet.

“I can't put you in a story, Ilona, because I like to use quotes. I can't spell most of what you say. It doesn't come out right on paper.”

My advice to the world is never to tell a Hungarian you aren't putting her in a story. To calm her down I explained my idea of putting her in a play.

“I have in mind this play. It's a cross between Our Town and You Can't Take It with You. With some music.”

“A muzzcle?”

“No, not a musical. There will be a piano and I'd like to have 'Appalachian Spring' playing on a radio somewhere. This is important because of the tree. There will be a big tree stage right. A boy about eleven will sit in the tree all during the play. He's going to be reading by flashlight, really reading, not pretend reading. He can take a snack up with him and do his homework but the emphasis will be on reading. When the third act is done, he'll climb down and say the last line, very symbolic, “Well, that's enough for now.”

“Vatts my part?”

“Yours I'll have to write out in English but only skinny Hungarians need audition. If their English gets too good, that's it and some other Hungarian takes over. Same thing with the boy. When road trips begin, he'll switch with another boy. I wouldn't want him to miss the Waltons on my account.”

She asked me who else was going to be in it; she didn't want to share the stage with hooligans.

“Everybody that I didn't get around to in stories. Actually, what I'd like is a kind of Follies, a new edition each year so I could have sequels. Brunswick would be in it and Ross would be there. She'd be the only one allowed to write her own part. However, I'd insist on my favorite lines of hers, 'They're in Von's.;...Oh, that's just the Oedipal thing;...Responsibility is experiential.' Eileen would be represented by a sign, 'Under construction.' She can't be in the play, though, because John is the only one tall enough for her and he wouldn't give her the time of day. I'd like to use Burt's line about everybody's retired by 4 a.m. The way I see Burt's and John's characters is that they'll be sitting on the couch watching T.V.. real, not pretend. At the end of a program, Burt will jump up and say with great relish to the audience, 'Sensational! You really missed it!' He could give an improvised on-the-nose review but he'd have to keep it short. Wednesdays, he and John would move over to the table for poker. Susan and Arnie will; well, no I guess Susan and Arnie won't. Maybe I could take to the couch instead.”

“You gon ve in it?”

“Sure, why not? What's the point of all the work if I don't get a chance to do something? Besides, that's the only way I'll ever get to sing, 'Ah, sweet mystery of Life.' Just think of it. I'll get to sing it every night!”

“What about d'plot?”

“Oh, I'll have a nice complicated plot. Anything anybody says in the first act will be tied up nicely in the last. I'll have a couple of fictitious characters, too, in case real ones don't work out. It will have to be very magical and all happen in one night. I also think I'm entitled to walk into the dawn with the hero.”

“Who d'hero?”

“He will have to be fictitious. I think he should be living in the cellar. He'll fall for me because he's near-sighted and because I'll be the only one who knows the author of Seven Gothic Tales. In my play, Ross doesn't get to know all the answers. I thought the hero could be down there with Joe. Did I tell you that on top of everything else, Joe went and moved out to the valley two weeks ago? Sandi and Ralph are leaving soon so there goes my menage a trois. Jenny asked, 'What about us? What are we supposed to do without them?' I think they should have thought of that alright.”

“I don lie.”

“You don't like what?”

“I don lie play. I vant to be in story. All by mysel. It very trilling, my life. How you gon get to class wid no Joe?”

“I'm not going back.”

Ilona looked at me as though I had snatched away her season ticket. I hadn't thought what my not going to class would do to her.

“It just seems to me, Ilona, that it's time for the last scene. Somebody should come down out of the treetops and say, 'Well, that's enough for now; see you next year.' I think that somebody should be me. I think...”

“You tin, you tin! What you know bout anytin? You all da time tin, don know anytin. I tell you dis: you don go to class, I not speak at you never!!!”

I'm not sure. What do you tin? It sounds to me mighty like a bribe.

Night Watch

This is one of many angel poems I have written starting when I stopped at an overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway at Air Bellows Gap in 1986.

NIGHT WATCH

In the shadows, he paces quietly

occasionally stopping near the gorge.

A deep hum of five or six notes

escapes into the air reverberating

in eerie cadence.

His thoughts, as deep as his voice,

(deeper than any human voice could claim)

swirl round like a trio of intersecting halos

over his dark wings.

The archangel ponders time past.

He is not impatient.

He knows the divine plan is exquisitely orchestrated,

a work of spectacular refinement and skill.

Loneliness is his companion now

in these dwindling days.

“Lucifer! My best elected friend of youth.

How I have missed you!

You, too, were given that

deepest and clearest of all voices.

Your gracefulness and wit,

your virtuous beauty

are gone to nothing.

No spirit creature can match you

in my affection.”

He longs for the day of restoration

when all will see his beloved king.

He prays. He composes a lament.

Miserere. Miserere.

Carefully he practices

so as not to cause avalanches

in his favorite mountain refuge.

In the distance he sees the lights

inferior by any standard to celestial lights.

He wonders if this would have all come to pass

had he been vigilant

on that eventful afternoon,

had he stalked the garden.

Obedient, he can only regret; he cannot interfere.

Obedient, he can only weep

and praise and hope

a little more greatly,

a little more sonorously,

a little lower than any man.