Priestess of Art

Tags

art, birds, ceramics, Occidental College, poetry

Occidental College, L.A, California
1964-1967

Afternoon of a Faun playing, my friend
quoting Dylan Thomas from memory,
the two of us in her dorm room,
long and narrow, curtains blowing,
dark sanctuary lit by her passion
for literature, music, art, drama;

our conversations subtle, oblique;
I groped for her meaning,
as though she spoke a different dialect,
yet how powerful her self, force
of nature, passionate priestess,
art her religion, the highest calling;

at first drawn to poetry but in the end
choosing ceramics, bringing forth shapes
from her soul, boats and birds, abstracted,
symbolic, mysterious; sharing her craft
with generations of students;
fifty years, passion still burning.

Vissers

Tags

college, death, music, Occidental College, poetry

Occidental College, Los Angeles, CA
1965

O Fortuna, began the Carmina Burana,
drums pounding like the blows of Fate,
you are against me. Went to the concert
with Vissers, slight, pale, sardonic; no one
called him Jim. Afterwards we kissed,
ended up laughing, just friends.

One rainy evening, sitting against
illuminated pillars, he said his mother
refinished a child’s rocking chair
for when he had children. He laughed
as though she’d been obtuse, said,
I’ll be dead before I’m twenty-five.
I’ve always known that. I didn’t know

what to say; what would I say even now?
The next fall, he was in the hospital
with a heart infection, said he was on drugs
all summer, never slept,

asked if I saw a black girl named Sharleen,
to tell her hello, said he was tired,
needed to hang up. I called the next week,
but by then he was dead. O Fortuna….

Sundays at Elaine’s

Tags

blocked emotions, emotions, Oakland, soul, writing

Oakland, CA 2014

In late afternoon, we gather in her kitchen,
six or seven women, sometimes a brave man or two.
Light-filled room, beyond the back porch
a patchwork of trees and other houses,
a feast on the kitchen table:
bowls of nuts, plates of cookies,
cups of coffee, glasses of lemon-mint water.

Our voices laugh and murmur, rise and fall,
until Elaine suggests that we begin:
a topic is chosen, timer set,
silence descends, and pens are put to paper.
She gently guides us as we move
from one subject to the next; we write
of secrets hiding in the chambers
of our souls, frozen fears, old aches
and open wounds, the stream of love,
flowing or blocked; memories that
charm us, haunt us, move us; courage,
how we bear the unbearable; and finally,
the desires that call to us, that float us up
to the blue heavens. We read our writings aloud,
unless reading the outpourings of the heart
to ourselves is more than enough.

Sacred time, when we invite our souls
to come forth in a ritual as old
as the dawn of language, when the tribe gathered
around a fire in a cave and gave birth
to myths and legends; now we sit in a circle
and tell our stories, rewriting
the myths of our lives.

Peaceful Journey

A woman stands on the banks of a river
in the painting on the wall. She dreams

of crossing over to the other shore. I take
off my clothes and lie down for my journey.

The scent of the oils takes me to gardens
where roses and chamomile blossom

at dusk and iridescent music shimmers.
Jessica is a healer, descended from women

healers of old. Her fingers speak
my body’s language. They say, “Here

I must prod and push, here soothe and calm.
Here I add blue, here I add gold.” Her touch,

the colors, the scents, and the music
are one and butterflies are everywhere.

When my body and soul are soothed,
I am the woman and I am the river;

I have crossed over to the other shore
And my journey is complete.

Seasons

Tags

cancer, commune, healing dreams, Love, poetry, pregnancy

A friend in her early twenties
lives in a commune in Oregon,
helps plant wisteria in the garden,
and visits the midwife;
soon she will have her baby;

I write my poems, which come
from just behind my head,
play with my dogs in grass
so tall they have to jump over it,
and talk with friends, though not
about how I wait for the man I love
to come back;

a healer in her forties, a woman
who keeps her heart open, embraces joy
by remembering a lake
from her childhood, and calls forth
healing dreams by wearing a pendant
of a stone from a meteorite fallen to earth,
has cancer everywhere.

All the seasons happen at once.