As Mourning Doves Persist

By yon bonnie banks, And by yon bonnie braes, I'll drive the edge of this earth where Ahead is destination and fight is erased From my heart, the sky as compass To the other side  where forgiveness is  A signal and the squat trees Oh! ye'll take the high road and I'll take the low road, Hold my tongue which instead may be  Merry f or my love resides on this edge And the edge breaks open to sight Into  diamonds as horizon Softening like these innocent Bountiful mountain  clouds

Having heard W. S. Merwin read last night I was taken especially by the magic in the whisper of the image in the poem he read entitled "Vixen". Here it is to recall that, the animal of that sounding/seeing: Comet of stillness princess of what is over        high note held without trembling without voice without sound aura of complete darkness keeper of the kept secrets        of the destroyed stories the escaped dreams the sentences never caught in words warden of where the river went        touch of its surface sibyl of the extinguished window onto the hidden place and the other time        at the foot of the wall by the road patient without waiting in the full moonlight of autumn at the hour when I was born        you no longer go out like a flame at the sight of me you are still warmer than the moonlight gleaming on you        even now you are unharmed even now perfect as you have always been now when your light paws are running        on t

Lately an imperfect necklace of deaths hang on our doors. Passage of a wheelchair-bound mother of a friend after the slow immobilization of her muscles. Then, my mother's friend who resembled a sprite, skinny bird, wore only pastels and whose subtle Texas drawl made for the sound of an extra grandmother especially when she shared her interpretations of my teen daughter.  Finally, just three days ago, my husband's mother slept her way into her final rest, essentially alone in Philadelphia, "no longer engaged by America" my husband guessed. What is that like, the disengagement? the untangling from a life?  My mother-in-law rarely seemed content unless she was reading a decent book or listening to a wise piece of music on the radio. She once typed us letters on the stationary my husband had printed for her and sent as a gift. Across the top of that cream colored paper, we had placed quotes from Shakespeare and Dickinson, one or two lines to stir the reader's

Odes & Offerings, Santa Fe, 2012 Easter. Words that reach  back in.  Hosanna. Passover  hope.  My friend mixes  cinnamon  and apples, mortar  that will  hold  the walls.  Books of  faith  springing to bud.  Light gets in. Any morning now. 

Perch                                                 for my mother Here the vine grows eight feet a minute our hostess winks twining one stray shoot back onto another at the mother frame The left side of her face stilled by a stroke These green lithe limbs resemble grape stems     the sky goes rose   we hear every punctuation     mark every trill mourning doves       the rub of wings against the dusk just out of sight goats caw                        then further rising flotilla of  fenced-in puppies     Our feet loosed from their shoes       rest on one white wicker ottoman in front                occasionally            a car inside          a telephone