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.

Forgetting

Tags

Albuquerque, birds, New Mexico, poetry, sexual abuse, trees

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1952

The back of the garage, dim, dusty,
was my father’s makeshift workshop,
a table set between the lawnmower
and the rakes, hoes, pitchfork.
One fall afternoon when I was seven,
I found him there, wearing
his gray and maroon wool jacket,
repairing a lamp. I told him
if he didn’t stop doing those things
to me, I would tell my mother;
he looked at the ax on the wall,
said I’d better not.

Back out in the sunshine slanting
down on our peach trees, next door
the apple orchard, last of the fruit
picked over by birds, I forgot
for forty years the things he’d done
and went on doing. In the garden
the chrysanthemums, ruined by frost,
had been cut to the ground.

Songs in the Dark

Tags

birds, Love, poetry

Next door, the birds—now too late
to know what kind—sang in the dark,
kept me company long before dawn;
the neighbors boarded up the eaves,
told me, laughing, that the birds,
for days, kept flying, flying
against the boards.

Sometimes I find I’ve boarded
up my heart.
One by one I take the boards down,
let in the pain and love again.

The early morning dark now quiet;
I don’t know when your heart will fly
home to my heart,
and so I sing.

White Egret

Tags

birds, egret, emotions, nature

Feeling low this morning;
look out the window,
white egret
flies through a gray sky;
joy.

Rousseau’s Dream

Tags

birds, dreams, elephant, jungle, lions, moon, poetry

Painting by Henri Rousseau, The Dream

Moon in the deepening dusk
awakens a vision of harmony,
each separate thing
part of the whole,
one with nature
and the mystery:
lions, elephant, snake,
bright-feathered birds
unmoving yet vibrant, alive;
plants growing before my eyes,
flowers fed by moonlight;
woman, strong, sensual, gleaming,
listening to the black man
play an endless melody
sent from the stars.

Four Birds Fly West

Tags

birds, death, messages from the Universe, poetry, setting sun

My husband, Eugene “Charlie” Chase, passed away,
age 93, four months after the event described below.

I step outside at dusk,
the long day done,
the long night just begun.

My husband sleeps upon his bed,
too weak to turn and tired
from the wandering of his mind,
the long day done,
the long night just begun.

All day I’ve wondered
will the latest drug turn him around
or is his final passage near?
I ask the dusk, “Is he headed
for death?” I look up as I say
the words and see four birds
fly west above the sugar pine,
a message from the Universe
(birds are its favorite messengers).
The Four of Wands, a rite of passage
marked, the Four of Swords,
the warrior takes his rest,
the west, direction of the setting sun,
to minds of old, the home of death.
So now I know, his soul will soon
take flight,
the long day done,
the long night just begun.

Sunrise

Tags

1951, Albuquerque, birds, Ford, Jung, Kaiser, Native American, New Mexico, poetry, sunrise

Albuquerque, New Mexico, 1951

These days the birds start singing
before dawn, calling up the sun,
like the Native American tribe
that performed a ritual
every day to help
their Father the sun
come up over the horizon.

I remember the car
my family had, a 1947 Kaiser,
a huge, gray, overturned boat
of a car, with a back seat big
as a bed, and I remember
the sorrow I felt
when my father sold it
and bought the little maroon Ford,
which I hated for not being
the Kaiser; my life was such
that every loss
made my world smaller
and darker, made me feel
like the sun never would
come up again.