The Innisfree Poetry Journal www.innisfreepoetry.org by Karren Alenier MIDSUMMER'S EVE 2005 For Hilary Tham (1946-2005) On the days leading to the wedding of Heaven and Earth, we come-hither Druids⎯noses all pushed deep into our tree alphabet⎯still noticed fiery bursts of miracles: the child born in time to be held by a dying poet, the daughters⎯Aglaia, Euphrosyne, Thalia⎯attending round the clock to their mother's opera (sizing her head- dress, deciding between carmine red or Prussian blue gowns, applying her indelible make-up), and the husband locked into his studio tuning his grand piano to her last aria⎯a bonfire of staccato and trills. "So quick bright things come to confusion." And we bards summoned for our healing lyrics leaf through our vowels but know no shield of white poplar can protect the friend lying under the rose moon from the successive fireworks exploding in her body. We hold her hand, struggle to speak, let tears roll down our cheeks. In the cemeteries of Paris⎯ Père LaChaise, Montparnasse⎯ she had mapped it out for us: death has its place, its audience. She, who believed in us, though what we believed, we invented. HOPE According to the legend, a curse befell the large blue diamond plucked from the third eye of an idol in India. My mother wore the Hope diamond that exquisite gem said to curse all who touched it. Picture this: a society renegade Evalyn Walsh McLean entering a ward at Walter Reed removing from her neck what she called her lucky charm, letting this legless private, that handless sergeant, and finally my teenage mother, a candy-striper in love with fashion, feel the weight of that intensely blue stone that if set in the sun would phosphoresce red. Imagine that necklace purchased in Paris from Pierre Cartier by the headstrong young woman who eloped against her family's wishes with the heir of The Washington Post fortune. Envision my raven-haired, high cheek-boned, ruby-lipped mama who married five times⎯the lonely girl who cherished the letter her daddy wrote from a battleship in the South Pacific wishing his princess Rona, a sweet sixteen and she standing with a long line of kings⎯Louis Quatorze, Louis Quinze, Louis Seize⎯who all wore this crown jewel. Maybe the curse in touching those 45.52 carats accounts for why she was never satisfied. STINGERS How delicate the man-of-war, A blue bubble loving heat. Give berth when it floats to shore! The old man did his Navy tour for WWII at a desk. Land under feet. How delicate the man of war. He never learned to swim and bore this secret in brooding defeat. Give berth when he nears the shore. His sensible wife insisted there's more. Dying she told their son, "Take him to the beach. You know how delicate our man of war." His eyes, the color of the tropical sea but sore from tears, drank in the fringed and bobbing sheet. Give ample berth or you're barbed for sure. "You don't know how love cleaves the core" he yells at his son, "I'm stung. I drown. I bleed." How delicate the man-of-war. Give wide berth when it floats to shore! CARBON When I die, don't weave a shroud, don't dig a grave. Take my carbon and make me graphite. Don't press me to diamond and wear me on your finger or neck. When I die, I don't need to be blue gem, quarter carat or greater. I want to be a pencil given to an ardent poet who will hug me tight. For that, I would burn. © Copyright 2006-7 by Cook Communication |