(April Wells 1943-2016)
I loved you for your name–
the bloom of youth, the standing daffodil.
I loved you for your voice, in full Canadian lilt
Its high and low note chord.
I loved you for your strength,
To clear the brush and split the wood,
and raise those kids alone
in the dark house across the road.
I loved you for the gifts you brought”grace and song and dance
And for the gifts you gave–confidence and joy
I loved you for your laugh.
A holiday to celebrate
The end of holiday.
I sit cross legged in the closet
Trying to subdue thoughts
that tumble like laundry.
A work in progress
Thirty minutes, every morning,
Forty years.
Or is it only labor
Watching the clock?
I face the closed door
Of an antique washstand
That holds the ashes
Of two who made me.
Creation or endurance
Their lives and mine,
Headed for now
Or never?
It ain’t necessarily so
It ain’t necessarily so
The things that you’re liable
To read in the Bible,
It ain’t necessarily so.
The psalmist says three score and ten
Is the year that it’s when to say when
But some disagree
And say age seventy
Is just time to start over again
It ain’t necessarily so
It ain’t necessarily so
Our days may be numbered
But we’re not encumbered
With twenty four hours to go
So here’s a small something for you
To keep track of them in all you do
La Grande classique they call it
Cause it’s classy and above all it
Grows old and yet always stays new
Mann und Weib
Und Weib und Mann
Reichen an
die Gottheit an.
(Wife and husband
husband wife
together reach
for godly life.)
[Updated June 30 2013]
Soon after their move to San Luis Obispo in 1989, my parents, Lise and Henry Marx, presented Jan and me with a gift they’d been working on for several years: a collection of German proverbs they had learned from their parents and grandparents.
I remember continually hearing these sayings from my earliest childhood until their final days. Each time one was uttered there was a moment of satisfaction”the speaker pleased to have found a way to make familiar sense out of some new experience and the hearer gratified to grasp the connection. Growing up as a first generation American, I reacted to these old-world pieties with boredom and embarrassment.
Jan wrote this amazing poem for me this morning.
Her title,”Daddy Steps” is a phrase I invented when I was three years old to denote little granite stairways and trails that diverged from the paved footpaths in Fort Tryon Park, near our tiny upper Manhattan apartment. My Daddy and I would love to follow them together off the beaten track.
When I first saw the steep undeveloped backyard of the house we moved to in San Luis Obispo in 1988, I looked forward to making some Daddy Steps for my grandchildren.
(for Steve E.)
Sometimes you pass without notice
into a new state
and look back later
and say, “how it’s all changed,
how did it happen?”
And sometimes there’s this:
a teetering on the sharp edge
of everything being different.
And if you go over, sometimes,
gradually you come back.
And if not, then you’re there,
looking around, getting by,
just like here.
Amor vincit omnia
says the Prioress’ golden brooch
in a Middle English prologue
I recited yesterday to my class.
Love conquers all:
all order, constraint, justice
hope and resignation
dissolved
in the assault
of horned buck, spurred cock
and rival knights,
in the swoon of a smitten queen,
in a country parson’s charity.
When offspring wander wayward
with their brood
it herds them home
undaunted.
The invitation from our esteemed host
Requested that his guests would bring along
Some ceremonious way to make a toast
For this occasion with a poem or song.
Hence, without a moment’s hesitation
I consulted Google for a clue.
It spewed forth many hits for contemplation
Of the old year’s end and welcome of the new.
I found verse by Shakespeare, Ralegh, Clare
Robert Burns and Frost and Service too
All grieving for the loss time makes us bear
All hopeful for what next it brings in view.
There’s little more to say than what they said,
So lets just try to love life, till we’re dead.
Through French doors
I see our bed
two pillows flat
on the Welch spread.
I wont go there
but camp upstairs
under the comforter
where you appear.
The tulip lamp glows
the nightgown slips
I kiss your lips
And palm your waist
the small of your back
derriere and breast
your nipple growing
finger tips glowing
you stroke my sex
swelling
ourselves expelling
into the air
balloon that bears
us both aloft
taut, distending
one way tending
towards the ending
blast of joy
exploding all
…and then
like feathers floating
down to sleep
we fall.