TRANSPARENCY
The following poems are selections from my chapbook entitled "Transparency" - a collection of twelve poems that grew out of a creative writing workshop I took.
1
After age thirty, human organs decline
by one percent each year.
Bees dance to tell each other where to find nectar.
Tree rings reveal age and environmental factors.
A goldfish in Japan lived to age forty-three, once.
2
In the second grade, my uncle gave us
an aquarium. We dreamed of neon tetras,
but the PetSmart woman advised inexpensive
goldfish first; death is common
by sterilized tank. Green net fate chose
a sluggish and stubborn pair, and later
my sister and I would pet the marble cheese
of their bodies. They were bloated, apathetic,
and would not die. Our dad renounced them
to the toilet on a rainy Sunday.
We watched writhing orange disappear.
At that age, I often disobeyed and read books
under blankets by flashlight. My heart nearly
left its cavity when Nancy Drew solved
the Old Clock Mystery, flailed remarkably
to discover what Wilbur might befall.
They say there comes a time when every child,
like Fern, learns what fattened pigs must face.
Nowadays, in insomniatic stupor,
I stare at ceilings and wonder about my own
forthcoming death. (Breathe in,
breathe out. It’s closer). My great-grandmother
turned ninety-seven last week, and I contemplate
how it feels to live with merely thirty-three
percent of your wrinkled body working.
Or to learn, like my school peer, you have only
three months left. One night, will I also use a
flashlight to detect unbeatable lumps?
Or am I to wane–varicose and unwanted–
wishing the Final Dark Mystery upon me?
3
At the end, I want you to cut down the stumpof my life and recite what you see. I hope
not drought or loneliness–instead, deep circles,
full days. I don’t want to be replaceable.
I want to dance and find the honeyed things of life.
GLENN GOULD
He lived like his ritualized diet: eggs,
relentlessly scrambled, eaten alone
at Fran’s diner. He read music before
words, sitting on a too-low childhood chair,
hands straining to meet black and white sweetness.
In threadbare determination, this fixed
seat endured eccentricities–Glenn Gould’s
staccato mouth brimming with private song,
gloved fingers combing for airborne octaves,
body chronically circling (as if to
orbit Bach). He turned from society,
skittish heart a hinged bench. Could he hear what
others couldn’t–unmapped scales, secret tone?
Do brilliant minds compose worlds of their own?
JOSEPH CORNELL
Some trees live like houseplants. Born on paper
towels, their roots stretch toterracotta
fringes and falter. Everyday objects
stunted Joseph Cornell behind the glass
boxes of his imagination. Steps
never lengthened beyond New York thrift stores,
where the sculptor’s meticulous hands grasped
ephemeral treasures. Fingers carved lands
he never saw, shaped women he could not
love, fused fabricated nostalgia. He
scoured parks, alone, habitually seeking
second-hand nourishment. Had routes swelled, would
his work convey deeper truths? Or do potted
views prompt awe for common place beauty?
FOR MARY OLIVER
1
When hay sits
in September light,
honeyed and
long-shadowed, like
endless spools of
golden thread–or
when the backs
of my knees gather
mud as we share
avocados and study stars
–it happens then:
2
My limbs laugh
3
and bones forget days when
they, restless and heavy, stretch
the skin sack of my body.
Garden mouthfuls ripen, night
bugs trill orchestral movements
in the dark,and I recall contentment.
4
May my days be as long and lovely
as a vast field, a sweeping prairie.
May I tend what is good,
may I be worth loving.
LIFE-CYCLES or
HOW TO MARVEL OVER METAMORPHOSIS
Staring, with our heads cocked,
in the broad daylight, at this thing: Joy,
landlocked in bodies that don’t keep–
dumbstruck with the sweetness of being.
“EMILY,” JOANNA NEWSOM
Uppercase cutouts on a grade three cork board
proclaimed LIFE-CYCLES as the latest
science unit. To enliven bookish diagrams of
tadpoles and robin eggs, our teacher prepared
curious gifts in small see-through canisters:
butterfly larvae for everyone! We flocked
towards these tenuous worms, recording banded
backsides and unhurried squirms in wide-lined
journals. All the while our senses balked,
staring, with our heads cocked.
That weekend I brought my prize home, wearing
the container on a string like a laughable necklace.
I dreamed about rebirth, marveled over metamorphosis,
feverishly beheld caterpillars fatten, grow,
age. We were young entomologists preoccupied with
these creatures, zealous to feed them crisp savoy
and think upsuitable nicknames. All that wondrous life
unfolding in a plastic gut was baffling enough to keep
elbows propped on windowsills, pupils smiling, (coy),
in the broad daylight, at this thing: Joy,
open-mouthed, on the morning their bodies became bags.
Now a chrysalis, in two weeks a papilionis. We feared
premature plummets off lid ceilings, careless janitors,
deformed wings–anxieties made real when some monarchs never
emerged, or others unwrapped themselves with
faulty limbs, yielded, slumped in quivering heaps
like tents with no stakes. Three cripples were soon
disowned by indifferent children, but most generously
grieved, turned to cubbyholes to weep,
for we’re all landlocked in bodies that don’t keep.
One Thursday, the butterflies were transferred
into a communal aquarium. Their oblong wings tinkled
the glass (percussion for art projects, juice-drinking, gossip)
as they experimented with adulthood, flight. After lunch,
our teacher ushered us to a neighbour’s garden where we
pried back the screen of their reservoired world–freeing
our friends to fly, mate, reproduce. One perched on my chest,
feeling the green of my jacket. Breathing stopped and
things were still. My mind surged with this simple-seeing,
wholly dumbstruck with the sweetness of being.