Letter From Washington County \ Ryokan And Little John

Nancy: The back-to-the-land woman and national politics – what a treat it was to read this at the Maine Fair and to hear a yelp of fellow-feeling from the audience.

Letter From Washington County

They said four minutes to midnight

and I said heliotrope, larkspur.

They said gunfire, democracy

and I said peppers, beans, round red beets.

They said me first

and I said cherries, apples, pears;

I said grapes.

They said God is on Our Side.  I said,

Oh.  Oh, I said to my neighbor,

will you come with your two horses,

your black team, and plow –

plow the flat piece, near the bay,

where the hay’s run out?

They said trickle down economics

and I said mulch, I need mulch.

They said massive deterrent and worst

case scenario, but I couldn’t keep up,

next thing I knew trees

were polluting the moralmissiles or

was it the mighty majorities

and I said,

Shit.  Well, I said shit to myself,

what I said to my neighbor was

barn dressing, you know that’s pretty poor clay,

I looked at those furrows and said

could you bring me some barn dressing,

some for the field you plowed and some for my grapes?

He said, Thursday,

and I said thanks, and dug four holes

for the grapes.

Alan: In a scene imprinted in childhood from TV and movies, Little John and Robin Hood meet cute, fight, and make up.  Only much later did I see that Robin Hood was really Ryokan in greenwood garb.

Ryokan And Little John

He blocked the bridge –

just a slick adzed log

spanning a creek –

said it was his border,

I could not pass.

So of course we fought,

pushing and shoving with crossed staves

until I slipped, sat on my ass

in mucky water.  He, laughing so hard,

bent double, gasping,

soon followed.  We hauled

each other out, dripping weed

and slime, collapsed on the bank,

stared up through shining leaves

at the hidden sun, lay there

 all afternoon, telling our stories,

ended up friends, have

never been parted, two thieves

open-handed in a kingdom

of clenched fists.

“Letter From Washington County” first appeared in Slow Dancer magazine.

John FitzPatrick Took A Ship To America \ Rites Of Spring

Nancy: My relationship with Ireland was tenuous – an aunt, a nun, who tried to keep in touch.  I wrote this poem during “the troubles,” when Americans were being asked to provide money and guns to prolong the conflict.

John FitzPatrick Took A Ship To America

John FitzPatrick

had his TB inside him

when he came.

Handsome, even so, he

married my grandmother,

gave Mama red hair,

blue eyes,

and died.

That makes me American.

Apple pie midwest melting pot American.

Jigless grudgeless churchless American,

John FitzPatrick dying young.

Except for a gene somewhere for the body

rocking back and forth with certain songs,

for no-word singing of certain songs,

especially drum songs...

Except for a chromosome somewhere for quickening

at a storm breaking in the west and sun

flaring on trees against a dark sky east,

wild beautiful Irish light...

John FitzPatrick

bequeathed almost nothing,

dying young.

Nothing that would explain bombs.

Nothing to make a blue-eyed American take sides.

Alan: For a few years in the 80’s, I danced the morris in a group inspired by Roger Cartwright, who seemed to tap directly into the dance’s primal roots.  I think Ryokan would have liked this, had he seen it.

Rites Of Spring

                               for Roger Cartwright

Commotion in the street:

from nowhere, sudden

as a passing shower,

the gray town gleams

to trill of a pipe,

rapped “tam tam” of a tabor.

Behind their leader, the morris men file,

leaping and capering, streamers flying,

bells a-jangle.  Clowning,

the bagman clears a space, a crowd

forms, the set begins, the pairing, the weaving,

tipplers spill from the pub, Ryokan

among them, pint in hand, jigging

in time to the music, the clack

of sticks.  He grins

to feel the centuries

peel back, the field gods

stir, the pavement

crack, the barley

sprout beneath his feet.

Bagman: The member of the morris “side” or team who traditionally keeps the funds and equipment; often charged with passing the bag (or hat) for donations.

Meadowlark \ Uncertain

Nancy: It’s a skill I’ve probably lost – the soft touch, the yielding feel of the bark as it loosens, ready to slip.  So no, I won’t be stepping out the door into the birdsong and whistling back.

Meadowlark

bright song

bright bird

on a fencepost

Time to whistle

when the sap rises

when the willow greens

Time to remember

man sitting on the back steps

his hands moving slowly

He raps the willow twig

with the back of his pocketknife

round and round

That's how you make a whistle

with love, slowly

carefully

bright sound

willow whistle

girl swinging in a tree

Alan: On a day when we were both in an in-between state, all I could do was keep moving.

Uncertain

While you were lying unconscious

I was planning my meals.

While you were being cut open,

the raddled part discarded,

I was sweeping the floors.

While you were getting fitted

with the new,

sleek as a bike frame built into you,

centaur of bone and alloy,

I was dusting, I was staring

out the window.

While you were in Recovery,

fogged, uncertain,

out of reach,

while I was waiting for the call,

while I was waiting

my heart and my stomach

arguing over too small a space

An Assemblage Of Crows \ Ryokan's Visit

Nancy: Before the yellow goldfinch, the raspberry-pink purple finch, the robin redbreast, there are the crows.  Constant neighbors, they share their lives with us.

An Assemblage Of Crows

A gathering, a coming together

     before dawn

     black sky

     black trees

     black birds

to the spruce, to the fir

     to the hackmatack

     crows on black steeples

     waiting, silent

     monks filing in

waiting

     for what they alone can hear

     the sound of a struck gong

     the sound of black transforming

     the whisper of light on trees

Sun rising, golden sky, golden trees

Crows

     black birds

     leaping in salutation

     leaping

     black birds in the sky

Alan:  Preoccupied with our goal-driven lives, can we welcome those unexpected gifts – the friends who come in, sit down, and make themselves right to home?  Would we even allow it?

Ryokan’s Visit

If you came visiting

would I know how to entertain you?

I’m always so busy!

Here you are stumping up the driveway

and look at this place, awash

in newspapers and half-read books.

You’d want to spend all day

drinking and talking poetry;

I’d be sneaking glances at the clock

hoping you wouldn’t notice.

There’s just no time for guests!

So tell me, my friend,

when can you return?