because, fortunately, we are not disembodied spirits     autobiography     for Peter    At Jewel Lake
   
My Mother, My Persephone   Birds of Passage

 

If you want to read Hallmark-card verses, you've come to the wrong place. You won't find any Rod McKuen-like writing here, or even, for the most part, any rhymes. 

So many of us go through a period in adolescence where we write poetry--poetry that is really a way to get troublesome feelings out and on paper--and then we drop it. Why? And why do some people continue? One of life's mysteries.

What follows on these pages is a variety of poems on various subjects. 

I hope you find something here that you like.

All poems © Kris D'Arcy

   

This poem about food and people who appreciate food was written before I became a vegetarian, as you'll see!

because, fortunately, we are not disembodied spirits

 

you are what you eat

and how you eat

so i never have lunch

with people who pick daintily

at green salads and drink only

black coffee or sparkling water

i like to see someone finish off

the half-pound burger, basket of fries

and a couple of german beers

then eye my leftovers

people who never need doggie bags

or at least

never refuse them

people who sigh "one of these days

i have to go on a diet"

while forking up fettucine alfredo

and drinking half a bottle of cheap

red wine

people who go back to the salad bar

twice

who moreover recognize

butter lettuce, couscous,

feta, oxtail

when they see it

who devour roasted garlic on hard bread

and know enough

to put a dollop of sour cream

on black bean soup spiked with cumin

i think i know how such people make love,

hear music, raise children, laugh

how they breathe in the spice

of lilacs and see

the orange horizon

of autumn

they eat not simply

to fill an emptiness

(so why not eat wonder bread,

canned mushroom soup, hamburger helper)

but as if more than life

depended on it

 

 

The two poems that follow are poems that I read at my friends' funerals. Thes were difficult experiences, but I'm glad I was able to honor them in this way. The first one was not written expressly for my wonderful friend Pat, but it captured the kind of mood I wanted to get across. The second was written right after hearing of the death of my friend Peter, who was a fine poet himself. I read his poem standing at his graveside.

 

it has something to do with red taillights and the moon
something to do with snow, Julys, the dread opening
again and again
of spring, far from rainsoaked promises
or the full river
it has something to do with loneliness

it has something to do with love and the full river
sometimes the quiet, sometimes the sun

it has something to do with broken words, the lie
of promises
something to do with silver and the full dark
with april
the burnished grass of late afternoon
it has something to do with love

I have seen blue slopes, white cataracts the steep way
unguarded and stony
I dreamed my children into daylight
water and gold sand have streamed here

it has something to do with loneliness

with the drum and the scattering wind
something to do with late august and the chattering trees
a sky full of glass
and the clatter of hot rain
it has something to do with 3 a.m., a cry in the dark
the throb in the throat
it has something to do with love

nothing is forgotten this is the curse
nothing is forgotten this is the blessing, the gift     what
will we do with it

we do not speak as we once did    now
every word bears the weight of time
I am halfway    the dark is out there    every word spears it   opens
its own door
and the dark is streaked and stippled with love

it has something to do with bread and bones
with the bed at the top of the stairs
something to do with voices and the singing silence
the rhythm of hours and the rocking of the moon
the dance of the sea and the stone
it has something to do with love

 

 

For Peter

A year ago these same stained-glass trees stood
between you and the sun, and the white blaze
on the face of the grass was brief and bracing
as your song, its frost and fire

That autumn you taught me the nuances
of November, the papery browns,
the barbs and feathers fading and stubborn
and the only gleam, in that month rough
with stony places, a pavement raw with rain.
You wept when I wrote to you
"how I love it all"

I remember mostly the cold, the clarity
of the sun on brittle days polished
by joy. Warmth was too easy, you wanted
black branches and a canopy of iced sky,
winter honed to a fine art, that was not too much
to ask--though not a realist, you were after all
not seeking blossoms

But it was in the blossoming time I last saw you.
Spring proved treacherous as ever, green and gold
and whispering the old lie of another tomorrow
and now, on this October morning
of chipped and broken light,
I think of your difficult radiance
in the shadow of vanishing leaves

At Jewel Lake

Every summer
we drive north, in search
of the night sky. The rest of the year
we live where the stars
are in exile, or dissolved
in a wash of fear and convenience

each year we go in search of the exiled stars.

Under an invisible moon
we cluster, whispering
on the dark and empty beach.
"There," we say, "Ursa Major,
Cassiopeia," legends
nearly forgotten, a hoard
of ancient lore.  Above.
the Milky Way's thick dust
glitters like powdered bone.
The sudden streak of a red meteor,
the white sweep of a shooting star
strike us silent
as the sky's extravagane.

The boat sways
on dappled darkness
as the stars gather
then float apart. Above and below
they lavish themselves on us,
on the waiting water,
on whatever receives
or echoes
their silver fire. Across the lake
the loons, unlikely singers,
weave the call-and-response
of their old hymn
reminding us
that we are alone
that we are not alone

Exiles,
we journey home each year
to find ourselves, each other,
the night sky.

My Mother, My Persephone

I wanted you to be Demeter
but you were the one who journeyed
to the dark. Already lost, you went willingly,
trading one Hades for another.

So I was born in the dark. Shadows
nibbled my bright red heart,
my yellow hair. Mother, I said,
help me. You could only advise
caution: creep carefully,
don’t disturb the god.
Stay with me.
By the time I was seven
the shadows had sickened me.
By ten they looked out from my eyes.
Mother, can’t you see them?
For answer, only
your own grief, your remorse.
They weren’t enough.

You hated the underworld
but you stayed. You had learned
to fear the blue and green,
the red and yellow world. You taught me
to fear it too, to believe
I couldn’t live there. Yet there was peril
underground. Your ghost whispered warnings
against both worlds
and I took heed.
I tried to be like you, invisible,
to become a ghost myself. But my heart
glowed faint as sunrise in dense fog,
faint as embers in forest twilight,
just enough to be noticed.

Hide it, hide it! you urged.
How could I? Up there where I feared to live
were things that fed the red gleam:
the moon, dried cornfields stark and hissing,
a bridge over green water, dangerous barns,
gray pavement. I knew of houses
filled with yellow light, trees that mourned
in December wind, lovers in cars bound
for somewhere, poems that burned on the page.
I was pure longing, longing that pulsed
red and distinct in the dark I swam in, longing
that finally pulled me with it
into the living world.
Motherless, my own Demeter,
I became expert at rescues--

all but yours.
The golden hair is gone
but my red heart blazes whole.
I tried to pull you with me,
my mother, my own Persephone.
And when the dark god died
you tried to tell me who you were,
explain your fate, your sorrow.
Mother
I heard you, but still I remember
your papery ghost,
all the deaths you died. I know now
you were neither blind nor deaf
only powerless
to speak.
Those days when you came to me secretly,
smoothed my hair, swallowed my tears:
they were all that was left to you,
a shadow among shadows.

 

Birds of Passage
                (for my mother)

 

When Father died, I dreamed:
Following a trail of song, trills
bright as water in a blank desert,
I searched the dead city, all silent
stone and glass faces, till I found
the yellow bird among the white tombs.
Near the cage sat Father, silent too.
The cage door was open
but the singing bird stayed.

*  *  *

Four hundred years of captivity
and selective breeding
have made the shining feathers
and the shimmering song.
Four hundred years to distill a beauty
destined for coalmines
to smother there and so warn
of a poisonous atmosphere.

*  *  *

After he died you bought a hummingbird feeder.
You watched the cardinals, the bluejays,
the goldfinches. Wild canaries.

*  *  *

Now you too are gone
and I dream of tropical birds.
They are spirits that come and go
as they please.
They are the colors
of your golden crocus, your iris, roses.
In the night, in the blinding sun,
jeweled birds soar and swoop
kissing me with the brush of wings
always, finally, to ascend
the turquoise sky.

 

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